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Grant Didn’t Fit the Eastern Theater Mold — Turns Out That’s Exactly What Lincoln Wanted

William W. Bergen — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 13:25:00 +0000

Passengers riding the Orange & Alexandria Railroad in early 1864 witnessed a bleak landscape disfigured by nearly three years of war. “Dilapidated, fenceless, and trodden with War Virginia is,” Walt Whitman recorded on a trip from Washington, D.C., to Culpeper, Va., that February. “Virginia wears an air of gloom and desolation; no fences, no homes—nothing but the debris of destroyed property and continuous camps of soldiers,” seconded a U.S. Christian Commission representative. “There was nothing,” opined a newspaper correspondent, “absolutely nothing but the abomination of desolation.”

The Union Army of the Potomac’s winter camps surrounding Culpeper depended on the railroad for provisions, munitions, and forage. Keeping the army supplied required 40 locomotives running daily along the 70-mile stretch of tracks that were vulnerable to floods, prone to accidents, and often attacked by Confederate cavalry raiders. Yet such was the efficiency of the U.S. Military Rail Road’s management that when 22 miles had been destroyed by retreating Confederates the previous fall, the line was restored within days, and the high bridge over the Rappahannock River was rebuilt in 19 hours.

A derailed locomotive along the Union’s busy Orange & Alexandria Railroad supply line.

On March 10, a special train comprised of a locomotive and two cars chugged its way south. Aboard the first car was a detachment of soldiers, but riding in the other was the United States’ new general-in-chief, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and a small party that included staff officers, his son Fred, and his principal political sponsor, Congressman Elihu B. Washburne. Grant had formally received his promotion the day before from President Abraham Lincoln in a ceremony attended by the Cabinet. There was awkwardness—Grant was unfamiliar with Washington and nearly all its officials, including Lincoln, whom he had only just met, and the general-in-chief was a stranger to them. More discomfiture lay ahead at his destination—the winter camps of the U.S. Army of the Potomac.

No one recorded details of that six-hour trip aboard a vulnerable train traversing a terrain rendered even sadder by heavy, cold rain, but the trip’s significance could hardly have been lost on Grant. The man who less than three years before had worked as a clerk in his father’s dry goods store in Galena, Ill., now commanded more than 800,000 soldiers in 19 departments in all Union states and several in the Confederacy.

Over the last two years, Grant had won victories at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga and demonstrated tenacity, audacity, ingenuity, and adroitness. But his character was what most impressed his closest friend, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman, who had recently told him that he was “as unselfish, kind-hearted and as honest as a man should be.” Sherman added that Grant’s most outstanding quality was his “simple faith in success you have always manifested, which I can liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in a Savior.”

Grant would call on those strengths as he faced a more complex challenge than any he had yet faced. He knew he would be directing armies in a year that would see a wartime presidential election that could itself determine the war’s outcome. The new general-in-chief also recognized that winning victories in the coming campaigns would be key to winning at the polls in November.

Rolling Toward Brandy Station

Grant had been promoted to provide a more vigorous prosecution of the war. That Grant, on his first full day as general-in-chief, left Washington to meet the principals of the Army of the Potomac underscored how closely was its success tied to the Union cause. Moreover, Grant’s plans had changed. Whereas he had intended to exercise his new overall command while headquartered in the West, he now understood that he needed to be near Washington to shield the Army of the Potomac from political intrigue and that Lincoln specifically intended that he provide close command oversight. He knew he would soon deliver a mixed message to the army’s leadership.

Illinois Rep. Elihu B. Washburne, one of Abraham Lincoln’s most trusted political confidantes, was an early supporter of Grant in Galena, Ill. In March 1869, during Grant’s first presidential term, Washburne would serve as secretary of state for 11 days.

Grant fully recognized the risks his promotion posed. After his victory at Vicksburg, newspapers had reported that Grant would replace Maj. Gen. George G. Meade as the Army of the Potomac’s commander. The report first appeared in a little-known New York paper, the Express, and might have originated with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. In addition, some, perhaps Congressman Washburne among them, advocated Grant transporting his army to the Eastern Theater and superseding Meade. Talking Stanton out of it was then General-in-Chief Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck, Grant’s departmental commander earlier in the war, and Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana, who had observed Grant at Vicksburg.

Once it became clear he would not be transferred, Grant expressed relief. It was “a matter of no small importance,” he wrote Washburne, that the change not take place. In that letter and in an earlier missive to Dana, Grant explained the reassignment “could do no possible good.” Noting that the Army of the Potomac was led by “able officers who have been brought up with that army,” the general anticipated that they would resent having an outsider placed over them. Commanding the Army of the Potomac, he continued, meant, “I would have all to learn.”

Even in mid-February 1864, with his promotion to general-in-chief all but certain, Grant remained reluctant, telling a West Point classmate that he was “thankful” that he had not been transferred. Commenting to his wife, Julia, that same week, the general intimated that were he to receive the top command, he would not be confined to Washington. Grant mused they might see more of each other as he would be traveling regularly between his Western headquarters and the Eastern Theater and could stop to see her wherever she elected to live.

But now Grant was about to begin his acquaintance with the most prominent, and unlucky, of U.S. armies. The Army of Potomac was quite unlike the usually victorious forces Grant had led in the West. Still looming over the army that winter was the shadow of its creator, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. Though dismissed 17 months before, McClellan’s influence endured, most notably among the army’s senior generals, nearly all of whom had received their first promotions while under McClellan’s command. To many of these men, McClellan bequeathed his caution and lack of urgency that hampered its operations. He also left an army culture of political engagement with Washington that undermined its effectiveness. Grant’s suspicions were correct—he was bringing a new style, and he and those he brought with him would be regarded as outsiders.

Since McClellan’s dismissal, three men had commanded the army—Ambrose Burnside, Joseph Hooker, and Meade. Burnside and Hooker were dismissed for their battlefield and command failures and, partly, because their subordinates had lost faith in their leadership. The army had won but one clear-cut victory, and it on the home ground of Gettysburg, and had repeatedly been manhandled by the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee.

For his part, Meade had been so criticized after his victory at Gettysburg that he had repeatedly offered to resign. Five days before Grant arrived, Meade had testified before Congress refuting false allegations made by several generals and an array of political opponents who sought to have him replaced. His hold on command was tenuous, and Meade would not have been surprised if Grant was bringing word that he would be sacked.In short, Grant was about to engage an army that was, in the words of Bruce Catton, “badly clique-ridden, obsessed by the memory of the departed McClellan, so deeply impressed by Lee’s superior abilities that its talk at times almost had a defeatist quality.”

At 3 p.m., Grant’s train pulled into rain-soaked Brandy Station, Va., the army’s principal supply depot, described as a “vast domain of smoke, guns, and mud-stained soldiers.” There, on the platform surrounded by barrels of beef piled high around the tracks, were two of the army’s principal staff officers, chief of staff Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys, and quartermaster Brig. Gen. Rufus Ingalls. Humphreys was substituting for Meade, his “slightly indisposed” superior, while Ingalls was presumably along to greet his old friend and West Point roommate. Meade’s absence might have appeared to a more protocol-conscious general like a slight, but there is no record of Grant taking offense.

After the train rolled to a stop, guards disembarked from the first car while officers and civilians detrained from the second. Among them was Grant. The only thing remarkable about him, thought Dr. E.W. Locke, was that he was smoking. “His dress is very plain, eyes half closed, he takes little or no notice of anything,” Locke continued, observing that a “very few officers, and as many men, came, took a hasty glance, and have now gone back to their quarters, most of them shaking their heads, and some saying, ‘Big thing.’”

This photo, “Gen. Meade’s Headquarters–Fall of 1863,” was part of Alexander Gardner’s “Brandy Station” series. Although Meade is not shown here, his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys (standing center, hatless) is.

The party rode a four-horse spring wagon to Meade’s headquarters three miles away, where they were greeted by the camp guard consisting of details from four regiments. One of the army’s finest bands struck up “Hail to the Chief” and other tunes, but rain prevented a more elaborate ceremony, which was just as well. The new general-in-chief never learned how to make an entrance, and if he took note of the welcome, no one noticed. Worse, his hosts could not have known that their new commander was tone-deaf and sometimes found the sound of music excruciating. Grant once confessed—or joked, we know not which—he knew but two tunes, one that was “Yankee Doodle” and one that was not.

Meade, clad in a common soldier’s jacket, opened his tent door to greet his new chief. Exactly what occurred during that meeting is muddled. Most historians have accepted Grant’s account in his Memoirs that Meade offered to step aside in favor of someone Grant knew better, suggesting specifically Sherman. Grant wrote that he was so impressed by Meade’s selflessness that he immediately assured Meade that he had “no thought of substituting anyone for him.” Meade’s more immediate account, written the evening of the meeting, is cryptic, mentioning only that Grant had been “very civil, and said nothing about superseding me.”

But Grant had considered sacking Meade. One of Grant’s aides recorded in his diary on March 10 that Grant had considered replacing Meade with Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, who had impressed the new general-in-chief in Chattanooga, but that there was now to be “no change.” Many published rumors had predicted that Meade would be fired, mentioning several different generals, and Smith was listed as among the leading candidates. Meade, who knew and disliked Smith from their time serving together earlier in the war, could not have been comforted by knowing that Smith had accompanied Grant on his visit to the army.

In Smith’s telling, Grant had found that the War Department preferred to keep Meade in command and that he accompanied Grant to Brandy Station only at the latter’s insistence. He discreetly spent the night not with Grant’s entourage but with old Army friends. Grant had lobbied for Smith’s promotion to major general and would later assign him to lead a corps in the Army of the James.

Grant recalled that there was “prejudice” against Smith in the Senate and that only after he persisted had the promotion gone through. As he ruefully recorded in his Memoirs, however, “I was not long in finding out that the objections to Smith’s promotion were well founded.” Meade continued to fret; as late as March 17, he was still worried that Smith would take his place.

First Impressions

Just when and how Grant decided to retain Meade is elusive. Grant was apparently surprised to learn in their initial meetings that Lincoln and Stanton were not looking for a change. Meade hailed from a politically important state, Pennsylvania, and was the only army commander who had bested Lee, making him difficult to fire.

Given the infighting that had raged for months among many in the Army of the Potomac, the administration must have noted that most Army generals continued to support Meade. Moreover, Grant knew he was an outsider in an army that did not treat outsiders well, and replacing Meade would only compound that problem. Finally, both Lincoln and Grant recognized that much of the effort to oust Meade came from those whose bad-faith motives ought not to be rewarded.

With Grant now general-in-chief of the whole U.S. Army, rumors were rampant that he would replace Maj. Gen. George Meade (pictured) as the Army of the Potomac’s commander with Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, a key figure in Grant’s success at Chattanooga, Tenn., the previous October and November.

Because Meade’s frequent letters to his wife survive, we know much about his frame of mind during the months preceding Grant’s arrival. Replying to his wife’s late-1863 question, Meade wrote that he knew Grant slightly from the Mexican War, where he was considered a “clever young officer, but nothing extraordinary.” Judging from the then-common usage of the adjective “clever,” the army commander apparently thought of Grant as amiable or well-mannered rather than intelligent.

After explaining that Grant had been compelled to resign his commission because of his “irregular habits”—a reference to Grant’s drinking—he listed Grant’s strength as his energy and “great tenacity of purpose.” Still, he could not resist observing that there was little basis for comparison between the U.S. armies in the East with those in the West, claiming that his army had faced an adversary that was better led and composed of better troops.

Meade followed up his brief March 10 letter four days later. In that missive, Meade gave a longer description, saying he was “much pleased with General Grant,” and that he had shown “much more capacity and character than I had expected.” He told his wife that he had offered to step aside as army commander if Grant wished to replace him with a general he knew better. Meade related that Grant replied with a “complimentary speech,” and disavowed any intention to replace him. Then Grant delivered the less welcome news: He intended to accompany the army during the spring campaign.

“So that you may look now for the Army of the Potomac putting laurels on the brows of another rather than your husband,” Meade concluded, a strikingly prescient prediction. Meade returned to his impression of Grant in a March 16 letter, saying that he was “most agreeably disappointed in his evidence of mind and character. You may rest assured he is not an ordinary man.”

If Meade’s words are condescending, hinting at being pleasantly surprised by Grant’s abilities, that view was shared by top subordinates. “Agreeably disappointed,” although a curious phrase, seems to have reflected a consensus. The army’s senior corps commander, Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, wrote to his sister that he had “spent an evening with [Grant], and was most agreeably disappointed, both in his personal appearance and his straightforward, common-sense view of matters.”

Despite news that Grant might command the army directly, Sedgwick noted, “[G]ood feeling seemed to exist between him and General Meade.” General Humphreys agreed, telling his wife in a March 10 letter that he was “agreeably disappointed in Genl. Grant’s appearance,” describing the new general-in-chief as having “an intellectual face and head which at the same time expresses a good deal of determination.”

Striking a discordant note was Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Warren. Grant, he said, “seems much more vivacious than I supposed and did not look at me with any apparent eye to discerning my qualities in my face.” Warren perhaps did not mean it this way, but he seemed to fault Grant for failing to perceive his brilliance, an early sign of a personal conflict to come.

The president warmly welcomes his new general-in-chief at the Executive Mansion in March 1864, optimistic that Grant would finally be the commander who capitalized on the Union Army’s military strength and end the war.

The weather having not improved, Grant abandoned plans to visit the various corps, and returned to Washington on March 11. He spent much of that afternoon conferring with Halleck, now his Washington-based chief of staff, and then with Lincoln and Stanton. When Grant said he intended to depart for Nashville that evening, Lincoln implored him to stay for dinner at the White House. Grant declined, citing the urgency of returning to the West, adding that he had “enough of the show business.” Besides, he added, “a dinner to me means a million dollars a day lost to the country.” Lincoln ruefully told the gathering of senior generals and Cabinet officials arriving for dinner that Grant had to leave unexpectedly, and therefore, the evening was “the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out.”

Grant had earlier promised to stay the night, so there was something precipitous in Grant’s immediate departure for the West. It may be that after a stressful 48 hours, and now knowing he would soon return to the Army of the Potomac’s camps, Grant urgently wished to see familiar surroundings and subordinates. Ahead, he now knew, lay a complex relocation for his staff and family and the transfer of his departmental command to Sherman. He now had a firmer sense of how much there was yet to learn and do.

Nevertheless, he had achieved a favorable first impression, demonstrating that he was a quick study who had quietly impressed strangers with his intelligence, determination, humility, common sense, and what Secretary of the Navy Gideon Wells noted was a “latent power.” In adjusting to Lincoln’s preferences to base his command in the East and accompany the Army of the Potomac still led by Meade, Grant showed a quick willingness to follow without complaint his civilian superior’s priorities. That augured well for their future partnership.

Official Washington seemed not to mind that Grant’s visit was brief, with several observing approvingly that Grant was “all business.” Still, as the train chugged away, Grant, again alone with his thoughts and cigars, could not know that he had taken his first sure steps on a momentous road that would, less than 400 days later, end in a stillness at Appomattox.

William W. Bergen, an independent historian based in Charlottesville, Va., has had essays published in the University of North Carolina’s Military Campaigns of the Civil War series. He also has worked as a paid guide at Monticello.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

A Creek War Baptism of Fire for Future Icons

Peter Cozzens — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 14:30:00 +0000

On August 30, 1813, a war party of 750 enraged American Indian warriors attacked a haphazard stockade known as Fort Mims in the southwestern corner of present-day Alabama, 50 miles from Mobile. After killing most of the 146 defending militiamen, the warriors turned on nearly twice that number of White, Black, and Métis (mixed indigenous and white) noncombatants, slaughtering scores of women and children with sickening ferocity.

The victorious assailants called themselves the Red Sticks, after the traditional red war clubs they carried. Until 1812, they also had belonged to the Creek (Muscogee) Confederacy, a loose alliance of largely autonomous villages, or talwas, that claimed a sprawling domain comprising modern Alabama and the western and southern portions of Georgia. Contact with British colonial traders in the late 17th century wrought the first significant change in the Creek domain. Those Creeks residing north and west of the trade route from the Carolinas became known as the Upper Creeks, those below it the Lower Creeks. The distinction was more than a matter of nomenclature. Living nearer to Whites, the Lower Creeks slowly shed much of traditional Creek culture in favor of accommodation. Upper Creeks tended to be traditionalists, profoundly distrustful of White encroachment, particularly once the American Revolution gave rise to an expansionist young Republic.

The Beginning. An engraving of the Red Sticks attack on Fort Mims, in modern-day Alabama. The Natives slaughtered all in the fight that started a Creek civil war.

At nearly 25,000 members, the Creeks were the most numerous Indian people in the American South. The other indigenous tribes in the region were the Cherokees in northern Georgia and western North Carolina, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who occupied the northern two-thirds of present-day Mississippi. All three would side with the United States in the pending conflict. Spanish Florida would prove sympathetic to the Red Sticks but remained effectively neutral.

With the Fort Mims massacre, what had begun as a Creek civil war in 1812 metastasized into war with the United States. An outraged nation demanded vengeance against the Red Sticks. Total war was to be the price they paid, retaliation complete and unsparing. There was just one catch. The U.S. government, preoccupied with the War of 1812 against Great Britain, possessed neither the resources nor the will to confront the Red Sticks threat. Prospects consequently seemed good for the Red Sticks, who hoped not only to subdue the Lower Creeks, but also perhaps roll back the border with Georgia and expel White and Métis settlers from southwestern Alabama. Although the future of the Deep South hung in the balance, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory would have to defeat the Red Sticks largely on their own. Georgia and the Mississippi Territory contributed invading columns to the conflict, but they made only brief and inconclusive gains. It fell to Tennessee to press home the fight.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

Enthusiasm for war ran high in the Volunteer State. “I hope to God,” said a Tennessee senator after Fort Mims, echoing the sentiments of his constituents “that as the rascals have begun, we shall now have it in our power to pay them for the old and new.” Tennesseans need look only to their own recent past, when Indian attacks were frequent and the state neglected by the federal government, to emphasize with the citizenry of the Tensaw. None reveled more in the prospect that victory offered to open vast new lands to Southern speculators and settlers than did the fiery, 46-year-old commander of the West Tennessee militia, Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson.

“Brave Tennesseans,” he proclaimed in a florid general order that exploited both frontier fears and avarice to spur recruitment, “your frontier is threatened with invasion by the savage foe. We must hasten to the frontier, or we will find it drenched in the blood of our citizens.” Jackson and Governor Willie Blount both were clear on the unique opportunity that the present crisis presented. Victory over the Red Sticks would be but the prelude to dispossessing all Creeks of their lands, dislodging the Spanish from West Florida, and preventing the pernicious hand of Great Britain from grasping the Gulf Coast.

Commanders. The attack on Fort Mims, seen at right, provoked both Andrew Jackson and John Coffee to go to war against the Red Sticks. Both men were friends and business partners.

Volunteers flocked to the banner. From his home in the quaint settlement of Kentuck, Tenn., the 27-year-old farmer and expert marksman David Crockett saddled his horse and journeyed 10 miles to join a new regiment of mounted riflemen. Crockett enlisted over the earnest objections of his young wife, Polly. They had only just settled on their latest homestead—the peripatetic Crockett frequently uprooted his family—and had two young boys and an infant girl to raise. David wrestled with his emotions. (The future American icon—the “king of the wild frontier”—never cared for the nickname “Davy.”) Although a proficient game hunter, he doubted his fitness for combat; he had killed plenty of bear, but never a man. “There had been no war among us for so long, that but few who were not too old to bear arms knew anything about the business,” he recalled. “I, for one, had often thought about war and had often heard it described, and I did verily believe that I couldn’t fight in that way at all.”

Then, too, there were Polly’s pleas to consider. “She said she was a stranger in the parts where we lived and that she and our little children would be left in a lonesome and unhappy situation if I went away.” Loyalty to a larger cause won out, however. “It was mighty hard to go against such arguments as these,” Crockett ruminated, “but my countrymen had been murdered, and I knew that the next thing would be that the Indians would be scalping the women and children all about there if we didn’t put a stop to it.” Besides, the term of service was merely three months, and the prospective pay hardly paltry. And so, on September 24, 1813, Crockett enlisted as private in the Second Regiment of Mounted Riflemen in General John Coffee’s cavalry brigade.

Crockett’s baptism by fire came little more than a month later. Jackson had penetrated the wild, mountainous northern fringe of the Red Sticks country hopeful of striking deep into the heart of the enemy domain. First, however, he must clear his left flank of 2,000 Red Sticks warriors purportedly gathered at Tallushatchee, a talwa resting eight miles from his newly constructed Coosa River supply-depot. Jackson assigned the task to Coffee’s mounted brigade.

General Andrew Jackson, circa 1819.

John Coffee.

Dawn on November 3, 1813, broke clear and chill over the clearing that cradled the clapboard cabins of Tallushatchee. As the darkness melted, General Coffee and 900 troopers glided undetected through the pine barrens. Two friendly Creek warriors guided them. Three miles short of Tallushatchee, Coffee divided his command into two parallel columns—the left element comprised of the cavalry, the right of the mounted riflemen clad in coarse linen trousers, long-tailed civilian shirts, and caped jackets called hunting shirts. Some men donned animal-skin caps, but not Crockett; he thought they made him look short. Suddenly, recalled Coffee, “the drums of the enemy began to beat, mingled with their savage yells, preparing for action.” Armed with bows and arrows, their sacred red war clubs, and a handful of muskets, the outgunned and outnumbered warriors (fewer than 200 actually were on hand) spilled from their cabins.

Coffee opened the fray. As the Red Sticks formed a hollow square, he hurled a company of mounted rangers at them. The rangers galloped to within musket range, fired some scattered shots, and then dared the Red Sticks to pursue. With a series of yells, the warriors complied “like so many red devils,” said Crockett, who watched from his position in the militia column. Catching sight of Crockett and his comrades, the massed Red Sticks veered toward them, unaware of the long line of cavalrymen in the timber on the opposite side of Tallushatchee. “We gave them a fire,” Crockett recalled, “and they returned it, and then ran back to their town.” Coffee ordered the encircling files to advance dismounted.

Pandemonium ensued. “Women and children darted from the cabins to surrender. Crockett saw seven women clutch at the hunting shirt of a stunned militiaman. He also counted 46 warriors running into a single cabin for a last-ditch defense. As Crockett’s company approached, a woman sitting in a doorway prepared to resist. “She placed her feet against the bow she had in her hand,” Crockett marveled, “and then took the arrow, and raising her feet, she drew with all her might and let it fly at us, and she killed a lieutenant.” The dead subaltern’s enraged men fired at least 20 musket balls into the woman. Her death elated the Tennesseans, who showed the Red Sticks in the cabin no mercy. “We now shot them like dogs,” Crockett confessed.

Two Red Sticks Defeats. Engraving from the 1847 book, The Pictorial Life of Andrew Jackson depict scenes from the battle of Talladega, with Jackson on a white horse.

Engraving from the 1847 book, The Pictorial Life of Andrew Jackson depict scenes from the battle of Tallushatchee.

Bullets penetrated the thin clapboard walls handily, shredding those inside with splinters, balls, and buckshot. To complete the carnage, Crockett’s detachment set the cabin ablaze, burning the wounded inside to death. The gore made an indelible impression on Crockett. “I recollect seeing a boy who was shot down near the house.” Crockett would wrote in his 1834 Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of Tennessee. “His arm and thigh was broken, and he was so near the burning house that the grease was stewing out of him. In this situation he was still trying to crawl along, but not a murmur escaped him, though he was only about twelve years old.”

Scarcely a warrior escaped death, while Coffee counted just five of his men killed and 40 wounded, most slightly. Returning in triumph to Jackson’s supply depot, the victors, who had been on half-rations for days, discovered that the contractors engaged to feed the army had failed to deliver provisions. A ravenous Crockett and several of his companions returned to the battlefield in search of food. Combing the charred cabins and blood-soaked grounds, they found a potato cellar under the wreckage of the same cabin that had claimed the lives of the 46 doomed warriors. They hauled out a large cache of nauseating tubers. “Hunger compelled us to eat them,” remembered Crockett, “though I had a little rather not, if I could have helped it, for the oil of the Indians we had burned up on the day before had run down on them, and [the potatoes] looked like they had been stewed with fat meat.”

Five days later, Crockett again saw combat. An allied Creek chief had called upon Jackson to save his people, whom he said a large Red Sticks war party had besieged at the fortified post of a trader named Lashley near Talladega, a talwa just six miles distant. Jackson’s scouts returned with a heartening report. The Red Sticks had not encircled the friendly Creeks. Rather, they were congregated in a shrub-choked valley below the hilltop fort.

At sunrise on November 9, Jackson halted on the northern rim of the valley, his presence undetected by the Red Sticks. He quietly arranged his troops in battle order, telling Coffee to deploy his mounted men on the high ground to the east and west of the valley and join their flanks behind Lashley’s fort. To Crockett’s delight, the friendly Creeks streamed from the stockade, waving and crying, “How-dy-do, brother, how-dy-do.” After aligning his infantry on the northern rim of the valley, Jackson opened the action with an old Indian tactic. He sent three companies into the valley to roost the Red Sticks from their camp, and then wheel and dash back to the infantry lines. Painted scarlet and stripped to their breechclouts, the Red Sticks took the bait and chased the soldiers straight into Jackson’s ranks. Smoke rolled down the ridge, and the Red Sticks reeled in confusion. Repelled on one front, the Red Sticks rallied and then charged Coffee’s line.

David Crockett.

“They came rushing forward like a cloud of Egyptian locusts and screaming like all the young devils had been turned loose, with the old devil of all at their head,” wrote Crockett. “The warriors came yelling on, meeting us, and continued until they were within shot of us, when we fired and killed a considerable number of them.” Crockett described the ensuing slaughter. “They broke like a gang of steers and ran across to our other line, where they were again fired on; and so we kept them running from one line to the other, constantly under a heavy fire.”

After an hour of futile battering at Jackson’s lines, several hundred Red Sticks survivors slipped through a gap between two units and fled. Nearly 400 Red Sticks died in the one-sided struggle. Jackson had inflicted a shattering but by no means war-ending defeat on the Red Sticks; they were too numerous and dispersed to collapse under the twin losses at Tallushatchee and Talladega.

David Crockett had no desire to stick around for the denouement. Together with most of Jackson’s volunteers, he quit the war at the expiration of his term of enlistment. In late January 1814, Crockett returned home to a joyous Polly, with $65.59 in pay and allowances in his pockets. Crockett would reenlist nine months later for a brief stint against the British in the Gulf Coast, but he saw no combat, his service ending before the Battle of New Orleans. “This closed out my career as a warrior, and I am glad of it,” he later wrote. Crockett had seen slaughter enough, and as his Narrative reveals, it clearly sickened him.

The 21-year-old fellow Tennessean Sam Houston began his Creek War odyssey a few weeks after David Crockett headed home from his first enlistment. A non-conformist by nature, at age 15 Houston abandoned the Kingston general store in which he clerked to live with the Cherokees, whose country abutted his family’s East Tennessee farm. The Cherokees took to the strapping white adolescent. The chief of the band adopted him, naming Houston “the Raven” after the bird the Cherokees believed symbolized good luck and wanderlust. Houston had not bucked the family traces entirely, however. He regularly visited his widowed mother and siblings, wheedling money from her with which to purchase a generous quantity of gifts for his adopted Cherokee kin.

In 1811, Houston returned to frontier society, fluent in Cherokee but intent on filling the gaps in his white education. He studied under a tutor and then opened a school for local children. Debt, however, soon drove him to resume clerking as well. Houston loathed the work no less than he had three years earlier. When in March 1813 the opportunity to enlist in the 39th U.S. Infantry regiment, then recruiting in East Tennessee, ostensibly for service against the British in the ongoing War of 1812, presented itself, Houston hastened to seize it. Being underage—the legal minimum age for service in the Regular Army was then 21—Houston first needed to obtain his mother’s permission, which she granted with an apparent admonition to never “turn his back to save his life.” That said, she slipped onto his finger a thin gold band with the word “Honor” etched in the inner curve.

A friend remembered when Houston “took the silver dollar.” Following the custom of the day, a recruiting detail from the 39th paraded up the dirt thoroughfare of Kingston with fife and drum. Silver dollars glinted on the drumhead as tokens of enlistment. Houston stepped forward, snatched a coin, and “was then forthwith marched to the barracks, uniformed, and appoint the same day as a sergeant.” Shortly after Houston left Kingston, admiring friends secured for him an ensign’s commission. Promotion to third lieutenant came apace. Lieutenant Houston cut a fine figure in uniform. Powerfully built, at six feet, two inches tall, he towered over most of the men of his platoon. His deep, commanding voice and eyes, as brilliant a shade of blue and as transfixing as those of Andrew Jackson, enhanced Houston’s natural gift for leadership. On the morning of March 27, 1814, staring intently at a gun-smoke-draped barricade, behind which thronged confidently jeering Red Sticks, the young lieutenant awaited his first test of combat.

Fight Along the Tallapoosa River. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814, obliterated Red Stick Creek resistance, and allowed the expansion of White settlement and enslavement into the Southeast. It also helped make Jackson a household name.

At last awakened to the danger a Red Sticks victory posed for the South, particularly if the British were to land on the Gulf Coasts, early in 1814 the War Department diverted the untried 39th U.S. Infantry to service under Andrew Jackson. With a command now numbering 3,200 men, Jackson advanced from his central Alabama supply depot on March 25, 1814, to challenge the strongest remaining Red Sticks contingent, nearly 1,000 warriors defending an enclave in a horseshoe-shaped bend of the Tallapoosa River, 70 miles northeast of present-day Montgomery. Along the south bank of the river rested the Red Sticks village of Tohopeka. Across the land approach to the village, the warriors had fashioned the most formidable obstacle American Indians would ever construct in their century of conflicts against the United States. A 350-yard-long wall of massive pine logs held in place with upright pine posts and props zigzagged across the neck of the 100-acre peninsula. In places the breastworks rise to a height of eight feet; nowhere were they less than five feet high. Clay chinking filled gaps between the logs. Two rows of firing ports were cut in the logs at regular intervals.

Jackson had devised a simple but ingenious plan—theoretically at least—to obliterate the Red Sticks and their refuge. At daybreak, General Coffee would ride down with his mounted brigade of Tennessee militia and 500 Cherokee warriors. They were to ford the river, come up on the Red Sticks from behind, and throw a cordon around the far bank of the horseshoe-shaped bend to prevent escape. Jackson, meanwhile, would march directly against Tohopeka with the infantry and an artillery company, batter openings in the breastworks with his two cannons, and then launch a grand bayonet charge against the weakened defenses. The 600 blue-coated soldiers of the 39th U. S. Infantry would lead the attack.

The battle did not unfold according to plan. The small cannon blasted away for two hours without even denting the barricade. Aligned in close order within musket range of the Red Sticks, the Regulars took casualties from enemy sharpshooters. Sam Houston and his comrades grew restless. Not until the Cherokee warriors spontaneously surged across the Tallapoosa and seized the Red Sticks village, causing warriors to stream from the barricade to rescue their families, was Jackson able to launch his assault.

Sam Houston.

Red Sticks Chief.

The fight at the barricade was bitter but brief. Cheering Regulars rapidly punched gaps in the sagging Red Sticks ranks. On the extreme right of the regimental line, Lieutenant Houston climbed the wall with his platoon. He slashed at Red Sticks with his sword until a barbed arrow buried itself in his right groin. Hobbling about exhorting his men, Houston kept on his feet until the warriors opposing his platoon retreated to a log-roofed redoubt in a ravine beside the riverbank. Then he sank to the ground, bleeding and helpless.

Houston begged a fellow officer to extract the arrow. The man tried, but the arrow refused to budge. He tugged at it again with the same result. Furious and perhaps delirious with pain, Houston lifted his sword and threatened to cleave the officer’s skull if he failed a third time. The man yanked, and the arrow came out, together with a mass of tissue and a torrent of blood. Houston righted himself, struggled back to the barricade, and delivered himself to the regimental surgeon, who staunched the flow of blood.

After the collapse of the barricade, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend degenerated into a five-hour slaughter of Red Sticks that ended only with nightfall. Nearly 300 warriors died trying to flee across the Tallapoosa. Those who remained behind fought and died until only two clusters remained, one of which was the redoubt in the ravine near where Houston had been wounded. Jackson personally called for volunteers to storm the place. Houston, who lay near enough to hear the summons, labored to his feet, grabbed a musket, and summoned his men to follow him. Stumbling down the rocky ravine as twilight settled over the forest, Houston came within 15 feet of the redoubt before two musket balls struck him simultaneously, one in the right arm, the other in the shoulder. Drawing on his last reserve of strength, Houston turned to order his men to charge, only discover that he was alone. Houston staggered back up the ravine before collapsing. After dark, soldiers burnt the redoubt, immolating the occupants.

Night fell. The occasional musket shots, which signified Red Sticks survivors rooted out and dispatched, at least ceased. Surgeons, meanwhile, attend to army wounded, which numbered 159 in addition to 47 killed. Jackson’s Cherokee and Lower Creek allies suffered 23 dead and 47 wounded. The Red Sticks force had been all but annihilated, with nearly 900 dead and fewer than three dozen escaping unhurt. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend effectively ended the Creek War. It also catapulted Andrew Jackson to national fame and earned him a major general’s commission in the Regular Army.

On the battlefield that night, Sam Houston received only cursory care from the surgeons. A doctor bandaged his groin and extracted the bullet from his right arm. He was about to probe for the second musket ball when another surgeon suggested he desist. Houston, he said, had lost too much blood to survive the night, better not to torture him gratuitously. Laying Houston on the ground, the surgeons ministered to men whose odds of recovering they judged better.

Accepting Defeat. General Jackson meets with William Weatherford, a mixed-race Red Sticks leader. Weatherford negotiated a peace treaty with the U.S.

Houston, however, refused to die. Shivering with cold, tormented by thirst, and racked with spirit-shattering pain, he passed the night of March 27, alone and ignored. When daybreak confounded the surgeons’ prediction, Houston was placed on a litter and carried swinging and jolting between two horses 60 excruciating miles to Jackson’s forward supply depot, where me might expire in relative comfort. Instead, he lingered on. Placed on another litter and fortified with whiskey between blackouts, Houston made it home alive. It would take him three years to recover fully.

David Crockett and Sam Houston had faced their respective baptisms by fire in the most consequential war between American Indians and the United States in the nation’s history. The Creek War opened the Deep South to the Cotton Kingdom, setting the stage for both the expulsion of all Indians from the South in the Trail of Tears in the 1830s and the Civil War three decades thereafter.

Destiny would eventually lead Crockett and Houston to Texas, where Crockett would meet his end on a merciless March 1836 morning at a crumbling former Spanish mission called the Alamo, and Houston would chart the course of Texas independence from Mexico. For both, the road to glory had begun in battle against the Red Sticks.

Peter Cozzens is the author of A Brutal Reckoning: Andrew Jackson, the Creek Indians, and the Epic War for the American South (Alfred A. Knopf, 2023)

This story appeared in the 2024 Winter issue of American History magazine.

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A Union Rebel Inside Robert E. Lee’s Family

Frank Jastrzembski — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 14:10:00 +0000

“[Robert E. Lee Jr.] is off with Jackson & I hope will catch Pope & his cousin Louis Marshall,” General Robert E. Lee wrote to his daughter Mildred on July 28, 1862, not long after Maj. Gen. John Pope had been given command of the Union Army of Virginia. Marshall was his nephew, the son of Lee’s older sister, Anne. “I could forgive the latter for fighting against us, if he had not joined such a miscreant as Pope.” (Lee would send a similarly worded letter to his wife, Mary, asking that she tell their son to “bring in his cousin” the next time she wrote him.)

Born in Virginia in 1827, Louis Henry Marshall followed the path of his famed uncle in attending the U.S. Military Academy. Commissioned a second lieutenant with the 3rd U.S. Infantry after graduating in 1849, he served on the frontier, and by 1860 was a captain in the 10th U.S. Infantry. While his uncle, cousins, and other family members in the extended Lee family chose to side with the South, Marshall put his country before kin.

In February 1862, he was appointed an acting aide-de-camp on General Pope’s staff. Brigadier General David S. Stanley recalled that Pope, then commander of the Army of the Mississippi, was “a very witty man and often turned the laugh on his staff officers and others.” He had once poked fun at Marshall’s “demotion” when the soldiers of the Benton Cadets, Missouri Infantry reportedly elected him colonel, then lieutenant colonel, then major after three successive elections. “Why Lou,” Pope remarked in jest, “if those fellows had given you another promotion, they would have landed you in the penitentiary.”

When President Abraham Lincoln appointed Pope to take charge of the Army of Virginia in June 1862, Marshall headed east, pitting him against his uncle and cousins on their home soil.

Marshall was with Pope during that summer’s disastrous Northern Virginia Campaign. In fact, when Captain John Mason Lee, a cousin serving with the Confederate army, encountered Marshall after the Battle of Cedar Mountain, he reported back that he looked to be in a wretched state. Pope had Marshall verbally deliver orders to Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks inquiring whether Banks planned to hold or attack during the eventual Confederate victory. When General Lee heard that Marshall was not in the best of spirits, he wrote Mary: “I am sorry he is in such bad company, but I suppose he could not help it.”

Marshall’s gravesite in Los Angeles.

Marshall escaped Virginia without being captured but was banished west with Pope after Second Bull Run and spent the rest of the war in the Department of the Northwest. He remained in the U.S. Army postwar, serving in Washington, Idaho, and Oregon—notably at the Battle of Three Forks against the Snake Indians—before resigning in 1868, a major in the 23rd U.S. Infantry.

Marshall followed his father to California and lived a humble life as a rancher until his death in Monrovia on October 8, 1891, at age 63. He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of America’s Civil War magazine.

Book Review: Showing A New Side to Rommel At War

Jerry D. Morelock — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 18:25:03 +0000

“Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your book!” shouts a triumphant U.S. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. (as played by Best Actor Oscar winner, George C. Scott in 1970’s Best Picture, Patton) while watching the March-April 1943 Battle of El Guettar in Tunisia, North Africa. This “gotcha!” exclamation implies the American general gained the key to victory over the German-Italian Axis forces he mistakenly thought were then commanded by Rommel from reading Rommel’s own impressive account of his development as a daring, tactically-innovative troop commander fighting French, Romanian, Russian and Italian units in World War I.

An avid reader of all things military history—his extensive, personally-annotated military history library was donated to the West Point Library—the real Patton probably did read Infanterie greift an, published by then-Lt. Col. Erwin Rommel in Germany in 1937, two years before World War II began and four years before Rommel earned his nickname, “The Desert Fox”. But the first English language edition—heavily abridged and edited by (understandably) anti-German wartime military censors only initially appeared in 1943.

What is certain, however, is that Patton never read this excellent, insightful, and revealing new English translation—which is much truer and exceedingly more faithful to Rommel’s highly nuanced, original German account than the extremely poor, indifferently translated wartime 1943 and 1944 English editions. Comparing Zita Steele’s (pen name of award-winning writer-historian-editor, Zita Ballinger Fletcher) brilliant new translation of Rommel’s classic book is akin to comparing Shakespeare’s Hamlet to a fourth-grade “Dick and Jane” grammar book. Steele’s deft translation finally does justice to Rommel’s original German text.

Bringing the Original Text To Life

Rommel’s original text comes vividly alive through Steele’s superb German-to-English translation and his account of how he reacted to and developed his innovative small-unit tactics to consistently defeat the forces arrayed against his own unit is exceptionally well-revealed in her new book. Usually outnumbered and outgunned, German mountain ranger assault troops under the young Rommel, time and time again overcame their enemies’ superior numbers and greater firepower to achieve their often daunting objectives. Steele consistently, and much more correctly, translates “German alpine troops” as “mountain rangers,” thereby better capturing the true nature of these, in effect, early versions of what would eventually be known as “special operations forces”.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

Rommel describes how and why he developed the tactics he used to prevail in each engagement, revealing his constant development as an innovative troop leader. This excellent new translation traces the gradual but proceeding development during combat in France and in the mountains of the Eastern Front of the young Rommel whose later operational genius would suddenly burst forth upon the Belgian, French and North African battlefields of World War II. This translation demonstrates the roots of Rommel’s operational genius, showing “how Rommel became Rommel.”

Rommel As A Person

Steele also reveals Erwin Rommel as a person, with the all-too-human flaws he possessed. Although the enduring image of Rommel was that of a homebody “family” man, a devoted, doting husband to his wife Lucie (they married in 1916), his relationship with another woman produced an illegitimate daughter, Gertrud, in 1913, whom he manfully acknowledged and for whom he provided financial support.

Additionally, Steele presents a convincing argument—based on Rommel’s admitted life-long insomnia and recurrent nightmares—that he suffered from PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder. Given his WWI wounds, the nightmarish combat he endured in that war, and the loss of many close friends, that diagnosis seems completely credible. Coincidentally, Patton’s best biographer, Carlo D’Este, concludes—very convincingly—that Patton also suffered from PTSD. This reviewer strongly concurs with both authors’ “diagnoses.”

Was Rommel A Nazi?

Steele also delves into THE question involving Rommel: Was he or was he not a “Nazi?” Although it is a historical fact that Erwin Rommel was never a member of the Nazi Party, his promotions by Adolf Hitler always beg the question of was Rommel a “secret” Nazi, whether an official member of the Party or not? Steele concludes—correctly in this reviewer’s opinion—that Rommel was definitely not a Nazi. Clearly, Rommel personally benefited from Hitler’s support and indulgences, but so did other non-Nazis if they served Hitler’s interests when that service was beneficial to the Nazi dictator. Rommel was enough of a non-Nazi that he paid the ultimate price—Hitler’s toadies forced the field marshal to commit suicide on Oct. 14, 1944 in the wake of the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler of which Rommel knew but of which he was not an integral part.

Zita Steele’s new book which is based on her new, insightful, nuanced and authoritative English translation of Erwin Rommel’s classic of military history 1937 book, Infantry Attacks, is a hands’-down, “must-have” book in any military history enthusiast’s library. It not only makes earlier English translations of Rommel’s book obsolete, it’s a “classic” account of World War I combat. Above all, it’s an insightful preview of one of the most famous commanders of World War II—and how he learned his trade! Buy it! Read it! Enjoy it!

ERwin Rommel: First War

A New Look At Infantry Attacks
By Zita Steele

get it on amazon

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Was George Armstrong Custer Really A Terrible Strategist?

Jerry D. Morelock — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 14:20:55 +0000

When it comes to George A. Custer and the June 25, 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, everyone seems to be an “expert”. Even those who may never have read a single book on the battle seem convinced they know exactly why Custer lost the western frontier’s most infamous battle and, in the process, got his regiment needlessly wiped out.

Their narrative usually goes something like this: Foolishly declining a last-minute offer to take rapid-firing Gatling guns with him, Custer’s outsized ego, reckless bravery and overly ambitious quest for glory led to his egregiously bad tactical decisions—including dividing his regiment into four smaller “battalions” in the face of the enemy’s known superior numbers—and prompted him to disobey his commander’s written orders by prematurely launching his regiment a day earlier than planned in a doomed attack. They believe overwhelming numbers of enemy warriors annihilated his regiment to the last man in a brilliantly planned, expertly fought and shrewdly executed trap. Capt. Myles Keogh’s wounded horse, Comanche, they always point out, was the only living thing to survive the massacre.

In short, “everybody knows” that Custer lost because he was a blustering egomaniac with presidential ambitions who was “out-generaled” by the superior tactical skill and battlefield command of Lakota leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Those who think they know for certain that’s exactly what happened to Custer at the Little Bighorn battle should heed this sage advice from an eminent historian: “It’s not what we don’t know about history that leads us astray; it’s what we think we know—but isn’t true—that causes the mischief.”

The truth of what really caused Custer’s defeat in the most famous battle between Indians and the U.S. frontier army during the western Indian wars is best revealed by examining Custer’s critical tactical decisions that long, hot, dusty day in June 1876. His decisions must be evaluated within the context of what Custer actually knew at the time he made them—and, importantly, what he did not know.

First, it’s important to quickly dismiss some of the Little Bighorn “red herrings” (on the surface seemingly plausible but misleading distractions). The battle’s most important ones include:

Sitting Bull

The Myth of “Indian Commanders”

The oft-read claim that “the Lakota and Cheyenne fought under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse,” implying there was an Indian chain-of-command controlling the warriors’ tactics and maneuvers, exposes egregious ignorance of how Native Americans fought. Indians fought as individuals, fighting if they felt their “medicine” was good, opting out if they judged otherwise. No Indian commanders issued orders and exercised command authority (although some warriors voluntarily followed war-proven successful leaders, like Crazy Horse and Gall, who led purely by example). The best description of how the Lakota and Cheyenne fought Custer at the Little Bighorn is to imagine a hornet’s nest suddenly disturbed—within moments, clouds of angry hornets pour out, swarming and stinging whatever disturbs them, their numbers increasing with each passing minute. Furious that Custer’s attack threatened their families, Lakota and Cheyenne warriors simply swarmed their village’s attackers as they confronted, defeated or annihilated each threat in turn.

Gatling Guns Fantasy

Those who claim rapid-firing Gatling guns could have saved Custer know less about those weapons and their limited capability than they do about Native American warfighting. Three main deficiencies would have prevented these early “machine guns” from having any positive impact on the battle: transportation, targets and crew vulnerability. The guns were mounted on heavy, awkward, large-wheeled artillery piece carriages and pulled by 4-horse teams of “condemned” cavalry mounts (horses deemed unfit for troopers’ mounts but capable of dragging heavy loads). On vehicles susceptible to frequent break-downs, the weapons could not possibly have kept pace with Custer’s regiment’s 30-plus-miles-per-day rapid reconnaissance to fulfill his primary mission: find the Indians’ main camp as quickly as possible and prevent the highly-mobile tribes from scattering into the vast landscape. Trying to drag the clumsy guns over rough terrain and still move fast enough to find the elusive tribes would have been impossible. The guns would have moved slower than Custer’s large pack train of cantankerous, stubborn mules which were so slow that they failed to arrive on the battlefield until after Custer was already dead. Even if the Gatlings had miraculously been present on Last Stand Hill, they needed targets to shoot at—moving around the battlefield on fast, agile Indian ponies, the Indians fought mainly on foot once in range of trooper’s weapons, concealing themselves in every fold, depression and gully the broken terrain offered while firing rifles, muskets and bows and arrows at Custer’s trapped troopers. Unlike the famed 1896 Anheuser-Busch lithograph, Custer’s Last Fight, which graced thousands of saloons across the US, the Indians did not foolishly attack in close-packed masses. Thus the Gatlings would have had no targets to “mow down” with rapid fire. Indeed, the “lack of targets” is supported by the low number of Indian casualties in the battle which may be as few as 31 killed plus a few dozen wounded of an estimated 1,500-2,000 Indians who fought! Finally, Gatling crews had to stand upright to fire the weapon, the crews presenting themselves as vulnerable targets to be quickly shot down by hidden Indian marksmen as the tribesmen closed in on the pinned-down troopers.

Terry’s “Coordinated” Tactical Attack Plan

Those who try to force a modern-warfare template onto the 1876 Great Sioux War campaign typically claim that Brig. Gen. Alfred H. Terry’s three-column advance (Terry-Custer column moving west from Ft. Lincoln in Bismarck, ND; Colonel John Gibbon’s column moving east from Ft. Ellis, MT; and Brig. Gen. George Crook’s column—the campaign’s strongest force—moving northwest from Ft. Fetterman, WY) through central Montana where the main village of “hostile” Lakota and Cheyenne was presumed to be, was intended to be a tactical attack plan for a coordinated military assault on the Indians by all three forces. Yet it’s clear from Terry’s orders to Custer (see “Terry’s Orders to Custer” sidebar) that they are instructions regarding how to find Indians, not a tactical plan on how to fight them once found. It verifies that Terry’s wide 3-column approach was solely intended as a sweep through the vast area to locate the main body of Lakota and Cheyenne and prevent their escape, not a plan of tactical maneuver for a simultaneous, triple-pronged attack. In fact, Terry hoped there would be no fighting and that the Indians—once found, surrounded and prevented from escape—could be peacefully escorted to Dakota reservations. Terry’s hope that Gibbon’s column would arrive north of the Little Bighorn valley on June 26 as Custer arrived from the southeast that day was meant for Gibbon to be a stand-off “blocking force”—not a tactical participant in a coordinated two-pronged assault with Custer’s regiment to attack and destroy the Indians—hemming in the Indians so they could be corralled and escorted to reservations. In the event, the Gibbon column (by then accompanied by Terry) did not even arrive until June 27, further making the “coordinated attack” claim irrelevant. Also Crook’s third column had already turned back, fought to a standstill in the June 17 Battle of the Rosebud by most of the same Indian warriors who—heavily reinforced by hundreds of new arrivals who’d “jumped” their Dakota reservations—defeated Custer on June 25.

Reenactors representing troopers of companies C, F and I, 7th Cavalry Regiment prepare to portray ‘Custer’s Last Stand’ to visitors at Harding, Mont., just north of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

7th Cavalry “Wiped Out”

Although certainly most legitimate Indian Wars historians know better, too many historically ignorant “Custer experts” keep repeating the mistaken claim that Custer’s 7th Cavalry Regiment was “wiped out to a man” in the battle. They mistake the fact that the five companies under Custer’s immediate command (companies C, E, F, I and L), the “battalion” he personally led after reorganizing his regiment into four battalions (see “Custer’s Reorganization for Combat” sidebar) were wiped out (13 officers, 193 troopers and 4 civilians—210 total killed) for his entire 600-strong regiment (31 officers and 566 troopers) being annihilated. Actually, the 7th Cavalry Regiment that day suffered 52-percent casualties: 16 officers and 242 troopers KIA or died of wounds; 1 officer and 51 troopers wounded—horrendous losses, but far from the regiment being “wiped out to a man” in the battle.

Other egregious “red herrings” include the idiotic idea that somehow Custer’s “foolish attack” was because he craved a dramatic victory since he wanted to run for U.S. president—as if any serving officer removed from command because he’d so enraged the Grant administration by his (valid) claims to Congress of the administration’s corruption could ever hope in his wildest dreams to be a valid presidential candidate. Custer not only had to beg for reinstatement to regimental service on the eve of the 1876 Sioux Campaign, but also had to convince his mentor, Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan, to intercede for him with Grant—a request only granted shortly before the campaign began.

Other improbable “red herring” reasons for the defeat include those Custer-contemporary bigots looking for a convenient scapegoat to excuse the disastrous defeat of the cream of the frontier army by so-called “primitive savages” by egregiously inflating the impact of the cavalry’s M1873 carbine’s weak expended-shell casing extractor that caused weapons to jam. The problem was real, but well-known and documented as affecting only as few as about 1-in-300 carbines. That it was not a major problem during the battle is supported by archaeological evidence from Dr. Doug Scott’s extensive 1991 Little Bighorn battlefield excavations which found very few carbine shell casings that evidenced any tell-tale scratches indicating manual extractions.

When the easily dismissed “red herrings” are wisely ignored, “human error” comes to the fore as the culprit in the 7th’s defeat—the series of command decisions made by Custer himself that determined the 7th Cavalry’s fate. Although he’s pilloried for his decisions based on the battle’s disastrous outcome, an examination of those decisions—assessed within the context of what he actually knew and didn’t know at the time he made them—reveals that most were consistent with what any combat-experienced frontier army officer would have made, and none were irredeemably disastrous…except for the final and ultimately fatal, decision he made at about 3:30 p.m. on June 25, 1876.

Sunday, June 25, 1876, was a long, hot, dusty day full of crucial decisions Custer faced at critical points during his—and half of the troopers in his 7th Cavalry Regiment’s—final day of life. The day began early. Custer had the regiment begin a night march following a wide, recent Indian trail at midnight—but by 5 p.m. that afternoon, Custer, his brothers Capt. Tom and Boston, his nephew Autie Reed, his brother-in-law Lt. James Calhoun (L Company) and half the troopers in the 7th’s 12 cavalry companies were dead on a bleak Montana hillside or soon to die about four miles southeast behind hastily dug entrenchments on Reno Hill. Hindsight is 20-20, but if the critics knew only what Custer knew—and didn’t know—that day, would their judgments be as harsh?

Here’s what Custer actually knew. His primary mission was to find the main Indian village and prevent Indians from escaping and “vanishing” into the vast landscape. Plains Indian warfare experience taught that the most difficult problem for frontier army commanders was finding Indians, not fighting them. At the start of the campaign, each of the three Army columns sent against the Indians in 1876 (Custer’s cavalry regiment, Col. John Gibbon’s column of infantry and cavalry, and Gen. George Crook’s cavalry and mule-mounted infantry) on their own was considered sufficient to defeat any Indian force expected to be encountered. The three widely-separated Army columns were intended to locate the Indians, not combine and fight them in a coordinated battle. Only after the full scope of the disaster was realized did Custer’s commander, Gen. Terry, later create the fiction that Custer and Gibbon were to attack simultaneously on June 26. Moreover, when Terry tumbled to the fact that the army would demand a scapegoat for the worst disaster in the western Indian Wars did he then create the self-serving narrative that “glory-hunting Custer rashly attacked prematurely, disobeying his orders.”

Famed Western artist, Charles M. Russell (1864-1926) painted his exceptionally accurate, Indians’ perspective The Custer Fight (1903) as mounted warriors swarmed over Last Stand Hill.

Custer was told he would face, at most, 500 to 800 Indian warriors. The present for duty strength of the 7th that day was about 600 soldiers—31 officers and 566 troopers—plus Indian Scouts, quartermaster employees e.g., mule skinners, and several civilians, including newspaper reporter, Mark Kellogg. Custer had written discretion to move against the Indians as he saw fit. His orders from Terry gave him full latitude in making tactical decisions (see “Terry’s Orders to Custer” sidebar).

Finally, perhaps Custer’s most fatal “knowledge” was that he had successfully attacked a Cheyenne village under Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River (November 1868)—a small part of a much larger combined Indian encampment that may have rivaled in size the June 1876 Little Bighorn village—and he had prevailed against heavy odds by dividing the 7th into several battalions, striking the surprised village from multiple directions and preventing probably overwhelming Indian retaliation during his withdrawal by using captured Cheyenne women and children as hostages.

However, the bloody result of Custer’s command decisions on June 25 was clearly affected by information he did not, or could not, know. Crook’s column, which at over 1,200 Soldiers and hundreds of Crow Indian allies was the most powerful of Terry’s three converging columns, was fought to a standstill by possibly 1,000 warriors at the day-long Battle of the Rosebud, about 30 miles from the Little Bighorn River, the week before on June 17, 1876. Crook retreated without informing the other columns that the Indians were in strength and fighting, not fleeing.

The number of Indian warriors opposing Custer at Little Bighorn was likely between 1,500 to 2,000 (two to three times more than what he had been told). Their ranks were swollen by new arrivals streaming in from Dakota reservations. Indian reservation agents purposely concealed the number of their “missing” Indians since that knowledge reduced their reservation “head count,” prompting drastic cuts in rations and supplies. The Little Bighorn village—probably, at its peak, about 1,000 lodges—was likely the largest-ever concentration of Plains Indians—a unique congregation lasting only a few days since game, grass for the huge pony herd and local resources would force the village to move after those had been exhausted. This historical accident—a congregation of, perhaps 7,000-8,000 Indians (up to 2,000 warriors) in 1,000 lodges (tipis) is the overriding factor leading to Custer’s defeat.

Brig. Gen. Alfred H. Terry, Lt. Col. George A. Custer

Terry’s Orders to Custer

On the morning of June 22, 1876, during their final meeting before sending Custer and his 7th Cavalry Regiment off on a “reconnaissance in force” mission to locate the main village of Lakota and Cheyenne, Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry, overall campaign commander whose mission was to find the Indians and force them to reservations in Dakota territory, issued written orders to Custer:

The Brigadier General commanding directs that, as soon as your regiment can be made ready for the march, you will proceed up the Rosebud [i.e., travel south in this region where rivers and creeks run north] in pursuit of the Indians whose trail was discovered by Major Reno [Custer’s second-in-command] a few days since. It is, of course, impossible to give you any definite instructions in regard to this movement, and were it not impossible to do so the Department Commander places too much confidence in your zeal, energy, and ability to wish to impose on you precise orders which might hamper your action when nearly in contact with the enemy.[emphasis added] He will, however, indicate to you his own views of what your action should be, and he desires that you should conform to them unless you shall see sufficient reasons for departing from them. He thinks that you should proceed up [south] the Rosebud until you ascertain definitely the direction in which the trail above spoken of leads. Should it be found (as it appears almost certain that it will be found) to then turn toward the Little Horn, he thinks that you should still proceed southward, perhaps as far as the headwater of the Tongue, and then turn toward the Little Horn, feeling constantly, however, for your left, so as to preclude the possibility of the escape of the Indians to the south or southeast by passing your left flank. The column of Colonel Gibbon is now in motion for the mouth of the Big Horn. As soon as it reaches that point it will cross the Yellowstone and move up at least as far as the forks of the Big and Little Horns. Of course, its future movements must be controlled by circumstances as they arise, but it is hoped that the Indians, if upon the Little Horn, may be so nearly inclosed by the two columns that their escape will be impossible.

The Department Commander desires that on your way up the Rosebud you should thoroughly examine the upper part of the Tullock’s creek, and that you should endeavor to send a scout through to Colonel Gibbon’s column, with information of the results of your examination. The lower part of this creek will be examined by a detachment from Colonel Gibbon’s command. The supply steamer [Far West under captain Grant Marsh] will be pushed up the Big Horn as far as the forks of the river if found to be navigable for that distance, and the Department Commander, who will accompany the column of Colonel Gibbon, desires you to report to him there not later than the expiration of the time for which your troops are rationed, unless in the meantime you receive further orders.

Custer’s Reorganization for Combat

After he was informed that the 7th had been seen by several small Indian parties and therefore assuming the main Indian camp would be warned, Custer abandoned his plan to hide the regiment all that day for a June 26 attack and instead move immediately against the Indian village before it could flee. Therefore, about noon on June 25, at the base of the “Crow’s Nest” peak in the Wolf Mountains from which the 7th’s Indian scouts had seen the main Lakota-Cheyenne village on the Little Bighorn 15 miles away, Custer reorganized the regiment for combat by dividing it into four battalions plus 35 Indian Scouts.

Custer’s demise was a popular subject of paintings beginning in the 19th century’s last quarter. Most, like this one titled ‘Battle of the Big Horn’ are littered with fantasy, errors and countless historical inaccuracies.

Custer’s Decisions
re: John Gray’s Centennial Campaign calculated timeline

9:00 p.m., June 24, final bivouac (near today’s Busby, Mont.)

Scouts report finding a fresh Indian trail, making it all but certain the main village is in the Little Bighorn valley.

Custer decision

Launch the 7th along that trail just past midnight, June 25.

Assessment

The decision is totally consistent with Custer’s primary mission to find the hostile Indians’ village as quickly as possible.

9:00 a.m., June 25, Crow’s Nest vantage point (15 miles from Little Bighorn village)

Accepting his scouts’ word that they can see the village’s huge pony herd (although neither he nor his chief of scouts, Lt. Charles Varnum, could make it out), Custer now knows the camp’s location.

Custer decision

Hide the regiment all day in the Wolf Mountains, concealed by the rough terrain, then move at night to strike at dawn, June 26 (the day he was told by Terry that Gibbon’s column should reach a blocking position north of the Indian village).

Assessment

Hiding the regiment for a dawn surprise attack on the unsuspecting village the next morning was prudent, consistent with Terry’s orders and confirming Custer’s plan conceived the night before. (Gibbon’s blocking force was intended to intercept fleeing Indians after Custer’s attack, not to participate in the 7th’s assault as an element in a coordinated attack as often erroneously assumed and as Terry falsely claimed afterwards—revealingly, when Terry wrote his orders, he of course had no idea Custer would decide to attack the village on June 25. Terry wanted the Indians found and kept from escaping.)

10:30 a.m., base of the Crow’s Nest

Custer learns that three separate small Indian groups had recently spotted elements of the regiment.

Custer decision

Do not risk waiting, make an immediate attack on the village before it can be alerted and escape the approaching army columns.

Assessment

Since experience taught that Indians invariably scattered and disappeared into the landscape if warned of an enemy’s approach, any experienced frontier army officer likely would have made this same decision. Custer could not have known that the Indians that spotted him were on their way to other distant locations and therefore none had alerted the village.

12:00 p.m., one mile north of Crow’s Nest

The approach to the village prompts reorganizing the 7th regiment’s companies for combat.

Custer decision

Divide the regiment into 4 battalions (see “Custer’s Reorganization for Combat” sidebar).

Assessment

Sub-dividing a cavalry regiment into battalion-sized maneuver elements was a common Plains warfare army tactic. Custer successfully fought this way at the Washita (1868) and Crook used similar tactics at the Rosebud (June 17). Notably, Col. Ranald MacKenzie, who usually fought his regiment as a single unit, used such “battalion” tactics in his most famous victory—Palo Duro Canyon, Texas vs. Comanches and Kiowas (1874), where MacKenzie’s stunning victory ended Comanche power forever and forced the tribes onto reservations.

2:30 p.m., 4 miles east of Little Bighorn River

While Capt. Frederick Benteen’s battalion continues to scout for any Indians who might be south of the Little Bighorn valley, Custer’s and Maj. Marcus Reno’s battalions surprise a few Indians who immediately flee in panic toward the still-unseen main village. Scout/interpreter Fred Gerard shouts to Custer, “Here are your Indians! Running like devils!”

Custer decision

Assuming these Indians certainly will alert the village, Custer immediately launches Reno’s 3-company battalion to directly attack it from the south while flanking the village by leading his own 5-company battalion to the high bluffs towering over the east bank of the river. Via messenger, Custer orders Benteen’s 3-company battalion to quickly rejoin the command.

Assessment

Taking immediate action now that the village is certain to be warned likely would have been any frontier army commander’s decision. Still unaware of the village’s unprecedented size, attacking it unexpectedly from two directions (while summoning reinforcements—Benteen’s battalion) seemed tactically-feasible given what Custer—who had not yet seen the huge size of the village—then knew regarding Indian numbers.

3:30 p.m., atop bluffs east of the river

Seeing Reno’s attack begin to bog down and becoming hotly engaged by warriors in the valley and with Benteen’s battalion still missing, Custer faces his most crucial decision—ride directly to Reno’s aid—which likely would have ended with Custer, Reno and eventually Benteen and the Pack Train, in effect the entire regiment, besieged on Reno Hill—wait for Benteen, or continue his attack from another direction.

Custer decision

Maneuver against the village from another, unexpected direction by leading his battalion farther north where the Indian women and children were fleeing, with the possibility of—like at the Washita battle—capturing them as hostages to dissuade Indian attacks.

Assessment

None of Custer’s command decisions—up to this point—had put the 7th on an irreversible course to disaster. Options that would have led to his gathering the entire regiment on defensible high ground still remained possible. However, his decision at about 3:30 p.m. to continue north finally sealed his and his regiment’s fate. Recent scholarship suggests Custer had still not seen the huge size of the entire village when he made this decision (he had likely viewed the valley from further east—probably Sharpshooter Ridge—and not from the better (higher) vantage point known as Weir Point). Lacking this vital intelligence, still thinking the opposing Indian force was only one-half to one-third its actual size and denied critical knowledge about the Indians not fleeing but standing and fighting from Crook’s Rosebud battle, Custer made his last—fatal—decision.

Pawnee Bill’s Wild West Show, Buffalo Bill’s competitor, staged this fanciful 1905 ‘Death of Custer’ performance showing ‘Sitting Bull’—who stayed in his tipi—stabbing saber-wielding, long-haired Custer—he had neither in the fight.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

Did Egyptian Belly Dancers Act As Spies in World War II?

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 18:21:41 +0000

In 1942, British authorities in Cairo arrested an Egyptian dance superstar for espionage. Her name was Hekmet Fahmi. Allegedly a nationalist with connections to Anwar el-Sadat, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and members of the Egyptian revolutionary Free Officers Movement, Fahmi had gained access to top secret intelligence from a well-informed British lover who worked at GCHQ and had passed this information to a pair of German spies who had managed to infiltrate Cairo.

At least, that was what Fahmi stood accused of. The espionage threat was credible enough for British authorities to put Egypt’s most famous dancer behind bars for more than two years. Her career would never recover. Yet Fahmi’s story remains a captivating part of World War II history, not only because of her alleged espionage but because of the talent that likely worked to her advantage as a spy: Egyptian cabaret belly dancing.

An Elusive Art

Egyptian belly dance, known as raqs sharqi, has a history stretching back thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian temple reliefs from the days of the pharaohs contain strikingly similar imagery to modern Egyptian belly dancing, such as women dancing wearing hip scarves to the accompaniment of clarinets and drums. While belly dancing expressed itself in different forms over time, including group dancing and male dancing, female belly dancing proved the most enduring and popular incarnation of raqs sharqi. Historically seen as a desirable trait for wives, brides-to-be were taught the art of belly dancing so that they could dance for their husbands. Some women became professional dancers to entertain primarily male audiences.

Samia Gamal dances a belly dance at Franco Egyptian Gala in Deauville Casino before HM King Farouk. August 1950.

Belly dance is a highly disciplined dance style comparative to a sport. It is a full body exercise that requires dancers to move different muscle groups independently. Essential to Egyptian-style belly dance, a scarf worn around the hips accentuates isolated hip and waist movements and adds flair to performances. Aside from complex hip, waist and chest movements, the dance also incorporates fluid arm and finger movements. To gain the amount of flexibility, precision and rhythmic grace to belly dance successfully takes rigorous practice. Once the essential basic movements are mastered, a dancer may weave together endless combinations and improvisations to form complex choreography. The dance can be performed to any type of music and also be highly dramatized if desired. Special types of belly dance performances can include candle dances, sword dances, floor dancing (performed on one’s knees and sometimes bending backwards), and the ever-popular veil dances, all of which require finesse.

Appeal to Foreigners

Foreigners who visited Egypt were captivated by belly dance performances they witnessed. Although Western paintings and illustrations from the 19th century often portrayed “oriental dancers” with colorful garb and bare stomachs, religious convictions saw female belly dancers in Egypt cover up more over time. The essential hip scarves were still worn but bare waists became less common and dance movements became more restricted as time passed.

Belly dance experienced a Renaissance in the 1920s thanks to the creative genius of Badia Masabni, popularly known as Madame Badia. Originally from Syria, Badia spoke five languages and traveled in many countries throughout the world. Drawing inspiration from French cabaret performances, Badia realized how to create an elegant and exciting new dance style fusing the best of Egyptian belly dance traditions with Western flair.

Cairo’s Favorite Casino

With innovation and entrepreneurial skills, Badia set up a nightclub in Cairo called the Casino Opera, also known as the Casino Badia: an exclusive venue that also functioned as a training school to teach her new style of dance to adventurous young local women. Egyptian cabaret style belly dance was born.

Badia revolutionized belly dance. She introduced sweeping changes to dance costume, modeling her dancers’ costumes on two-piece French cabaret outfits with decorative brassieres, short hip scarves, and plenty of sequins. The dancers performed in high heels and sometimes barefoot. Badia developed new signature moves in the dance; she also allowed the dancers a wider field of movement and mixed signature Egyptian techniques with Latin dance styles and ballet. Badia also upended music, blending Western orchestral instruments like violins, cello and accordion with Egyptian traditional instruments such as clarinets and tabla drums to create powerful and enchanting background music for performances. The results were fantastic. Badia’s new cabaret dance style became all the rage in Cairo and influenced other schools of dance.

Cabarets offering belly dance performances became magnets for British troops garrisoned in Cairo both before and during World War II. Badia’s Casino Opera was one of the most popular hotspots. Egypt’s King Farouk was a patron as was Randolph Churchill and many other famous personages. Many British soldiers in Cairo were eager to enjoy the company of attractive Egyptian females in nightclubs as well as to drink and socialize. Cabarets like Badia’s Casino Opera in Cairo were great places to mix—and to spy.

South African soldiers serving in the British Army enjoy a performance by the belly dancers of Madame Badia Masabni’s famous cabaret troupe at the opening night of the El Alamein Club in Cairo in 1943.

During World War II, many Egyptians were sympathetic to the Germans due to a general dislike at living under a de facto British occupation. We will probably never know how many Egyptian women who gained access to influential military and government officials through nightclub entertainment passed information they learned to German intelligence operatives, spurred by a desire to further the cause of Egyptian independence.

Accused spy Hekmet Fahmi herself was trained at the Casino Opera and was one of Madame Badia’s star pupils. Badia herself was rumored to have engaged in espionage, although for whom she may have been spying remains a mystery.

What is clear is that the special dance style that Badia and her proteges wielded to enchant their audiences has had staying power. The Casino Opera debuted many famous Egyptian belly dancers and movie stars, such as Samia Gamal and Taheyya Kariokka, icons of 1950s Egyptian cinema. These talented and graceful women remain an inspiration for practitioners of Egyptian cabaret belly dance, a style which spread from Cairo all over the world and remains popular today.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

Robert E. Lee Endured a Precipitous Reset in Maryland

Alexander Rossino — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 13:42:00 +0000

Debate about the importance of the loss of Robert E. Lee’s Special Orders No. 191 to the outcome of the September 1862 Maryland Campaign has long revolved around the response of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan upon reading the document found by a Federal soldier outside Frederick, Md., on September 13. To those in agreement with the thesis proposed by authors such as Stephen W. Sears, the so-called “Lost Orders” provided McClellan with potentially war-winning intelligence that he duly squandered through excessive indecision. Conversely, to those who prefer fellow historian Joseph L. Harsh’s interpretation, McClellan gained little useful information in the Lost Orders, principally because the Federal commander had already begun pushing troops west from Frederick in pursuit of Lee’s army before the document passed into his hands.

The merits of these arguments notwithstanding, neither takes into account the impact that McClellan’s actions had on Confederate operations from September 14 onward. When considered from this point of view, it becomes clear that McClellan’s assault on the South Mountain gaps had three significant effects: It ruined Lee’s plan for the campaign after the capture of Harpers Ferry, Va.; it forced Lee to take up a less than favorable ad hoc defensive position at Sharpsburg; and it weakened the Army of Northern Virginia’s combat strength in the days leading up to the clash there on September 16-17.

Lee issued Special Orders No. 191 on September 9, 1862, with the bulk of his army camped around Frederick. In addition to dividing his army—with the capture of Harpers Ferry as the objective—he also set in motion a plan to eventually reassemble his force between Hagerstown and Boonsboro for a decisive clash with the Army of the Potomac.

According to Paragraph IX of Special Orders No. 191, Lee desired that following the fall of the Federal garrison at Harpers Ferry, “The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws, and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body of the army at Boonsborough or Hagerstown.” Why Lee envisioned reassembling his army in the middle of Maryland’s Washington County is explained by his overall strategy for waging war in the state. After initially seeking to instigate a popular rebellion north of the Potomac River, Lee learned from Confederate sympathizers in Frederick City that it was likely no uprising would take place until martial law in the state had been lifted. The arrest of prominent Secessionists and the seizure of private property by Federal authorities had convinced those aligned with the South that they could never successfully resist the national government’s occupation forces unless Lee’s army could defend them. The general noted this belief in his August 1863 campaign report, writing, “The difficulties that surrounded them [Maryland’s Secessionists] were fully appreciated…[and] we expected to derive more assistance…from the just fears of the Washington Government than from any active demonstration on the part of the people, unless success should enable us to give them assurance of continued protection.”

A second source echoes Lee’s statement, this one penned by British army officer (and later Field Marshal) Garnet Joseph Wolseley. Visiting the Army of Northern Virginia in mid-October 1862, Wolseley wrote: “It is generally stated that the Confederate authorities calculated upon a rising in Maryland directly [when] their army entered that state. Everybody to whom I spoke on the subject ridiculed the idea…that any such rising would take place, until either Baltimore was in their hands, or they had at least established a position in that country.”

Wolseley’s comment confirms two things. First, it reinforces the conclusion that the policy of entering Maryland to test the strength of secessionist sentiment came from “Confederate authorities” in Richmond. This means that Robert E. Lee did not act on his own when he took his army across the Potomac. He was carrying out an official policy of the Confederate government. Second, Wolseley’s comment makes it clear that many of the officers with whom he spoke shared Lee’s belief their army could encourage an uprising in Maryland only if it won a victory (i.e., “established a position in the country”) or if it marched on and seized Baltimore.

In response to the reluctance of Maryland’s people to rise up, Lee took steps to reassure those who might be inclined to support the South. He instructed Charles Marshall to compose a proclamation explaining the reasons for the Army of Northern Virginia’s presence in the state and, after learning on September 8 that the Federal garrison remained in place at Harpers Ferry, he designed Special Orders No. 191 to capture it. Lee also learned on September 8 that a new army under the command of McClellan had begun advancing toward Frederick.

In view of this oncoming threat, Lee hoped that Jackson and the others detached for the operation could quickly seize the ferry and then rejoin Longstreet’s command for a decisive battle with McClellan’s force. A slight alteration Lee made to this plan on September 11 included marching a portion of the army toward Hagerstown (and Pennsylvania) to “induce the enemy to follow” west of South Mountain. This maneuver substantiated a statement attributed to Lee that appeared in the September 12 issue of The Philadelphia Inquirer which held that “the battle ground must hereafter be in Maryland” if the state’s people failed to rebel.

Once he arrived west of South Mountain, Lee intended to confront McClellan on ground of his choosing. There he could crush the Army of the Potomac far from the protection of the Washington defenses and achieve the potentially war-ending victory that had eluded him at Second Manassas. Lee therefore chose the heights along a small watercourse called Beaver Creek as his preferred battleground. Anchored in the southwest by rough terrain along Antietam Creek, and ranging as tall as 560 feet in elevation, this undulating ridge line runs east-northeast nearly to the base of South Mountain. The Beaver Creek heights offered Lee a strong position that would be difficult, although not impossible, for an enemy to flank if it was occupied by a determined defender.

Wrecked Plans

Multiple sources confirm the general’s desire to defend the Beaver Creek line. These include a dispatch Lee sent to Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws on the evening of September 13, after he learned from Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill that a powerful enemy column had appeared at the eastern foot of South Mountain. Telling McLaws, “General Longstreet will move down [from Hagerstown] to-morrow,” Lee added that Longstreet’s men would “take position on Beaver Creek this side of Boonsborough.”

The following morning, according to the war reminiscences of Angela Kirkham Davis, a New York–born woman residing in Funkstown, Md., Lee issued a warning to the people of her village, located some four miles behind Beaver Creek. Lee advised them to flee from the fight he believed was about to take place in their midst. Then Lee spoke to his artillery chief, Brig. Gen. William N. Pendleton, about the Beaver Creek position later that day. Pendleton recalled this in his campaign report, stating that on “Sunday morning, 14th, we were summoned to return toward Boonsborough, the enemy having advanced upon General D.H. Hill. When I arrived and reported to you [General Lee] a short distance from the battle-field, you directed me to place in position on the heights of Beaver Creek the several batteries of my command.” Pendleton’s report demonstrates that even as the Battle of South Mountain raged Lee hoped to fall back to his chosen position along Beaver Creek.

Sources also show that contrary to claims made by Lee and Longstreet after the campaign about departing from Hagerstown at daybreak to reinforce Hill atop South Mountain, Longstreet’s reduced command of eight brigades (Brig. Gen. Robert Toombs’ brigade remained at Hagerstown) and the independent brigade of Brig. Gen. Nathan “Shanks” Evans did not get on the road until after the fighting at South Mountain began around 8 a.m. Lee clinging stubbornly to his Beaver Creek plan would account for this delay because, as the general himself later wrote, “It had not been intended to oppose [the Federal army’s] passage through the South Mountains, as it was desired to engage it as far as possible from its base.”

McClellan already had troops advancing out of Frederick by the time he read Lee’s Lost Orders. The bloody fighting that broke out at South Mountain on September 14 was a precursor to the horror at Antietam. Shown here is the attack at Fox’s Gap by the 23rd Ohio and 12th Ohio on Brig. Gen. Samuel Garland’s North Carolina brigade.

McClellan’s army “advancing more rapidly than was convenient from Fredericktown” wrecked these plans for Lee by forcing him to defend the South Mountain passes. Doing so placed the Confederate commander in a difficult position. Unfamiliar with the terrain atop the mountain, and too disabled by injuries incurred during an accident at the end of August to ride a horse, Lee could not personally direct his army’s defense of the mountain passes. The situation five miles south at Crampton’s Gap proved even more headache-inducing as its defense remained entirely beyond the general’s control.

Consequently, three major outcomes resulted from McClellan using the information he learned in the Lost Orders: He attacked the South Mountain gaps; he forced Lee to abandon the favorable defensive position he had chosen; and he compelled Lee to defend ground on South Mountain that the Confederate general neither knew nor planned on defending in the first place.

A Less Favorable Position

The rapidity of McClellan’s unexpected advance knocked Lee off balance. Not only did the defeat at South Mountain then force Lee to fall back in the direction of Virginia, but it also called into question where, or even if, the general could salvage his plan to fight north of the Potomac. After all, Jackson’s siege of Harpers Ferry remained underway with Lee ignorant of when it might be concluded. The hope expressed by Special Orders No. 191 was that Jackson could compel the garrison’s surrender by Sunday, September 14, at the latest. On the morning of September 15, however, Lee found himself still oblivious to Jackson’s progress. For a short time overnight on September 14, Lee even considered returning to Virginia, writing to McLaws after learning of the Federal victory at Crampton’s Gap: “The day has gone against us and this army will go by Sharpsburg and cross the river.”

Then, at about 8 a.m. on September 15, a note from Jackson finally made its way to Lee, stating that he anticipated the enemy would surrender Harpers Ferry in short order. Receiving this note in the vicinity of Keedysville breathed new life into Lee’s faltering operation and he quickly sought ground on which to fight the battle he had envisioned fighting at Beaver Creek. This ground he found on the far side of Antietam Creek, and although Lee did not say it, the terrain there resembled the Beaver Creek position to a degree. With heights as tall as 500 feet above sea level between the creek and Sharpsburg, Lee found a position closer to Jackson in (West) Virginia that was on the flank of Lafayette McLaws’ position in Pleasant Valley, and which looked similar to the one he had originally intended to occupy several miles to the north.

Federal forces again occupied Maryland Heights overlooking Harpers Ferry (now officially part of new West Virginia) when this oil on canvas was painted in June 1863. Control of Harpers Ferry was crucial to Lee’s plans in Maryland; the Union garrison there would surrender September 15, 1862.

Yet unlike the Beaver Creek position, Antietam Creek and the heights in front of Sharpsburg anchored only the center and far right of the Confederate line. Rolling countryside bisected by low ridges and peppered with woodlots characterized the terrain on the Confederate left flank. This ground proved to be defensible, but South Mountain did not hem in the position there as it did along Beaver Creek. Putting numbers to this equation, the distance between the eastern end of the Beaver Creek heights and the western slope of South Mountain near the small community of San Mar is approximately 1,056 yards or 0.6 miles—equaling a battlefront just under three Civil War–era brigades in length.

North of Sharpsburg, the distance from the creek to farmer David Miller’s soon-to-be-immortal cornfield—where the bulk of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s attack fell the morning of September 17—is 2,816 yards or 1.6 miles. That equaled a front line more than two divisions long, meaning McClellan could maneuver a larger number of troops against the Confederate left than he would have been able to had Lee managed to defend the Beaver Creek heights. The resulting stand-up fight at Sharpsburg thus proved to be less to the benefit of the smaller, numerically weaker Army of Northern Virginia and more to the advantage of the larger Army of the Potomac.

Fighting at the Beaver Creek position also would have provided Lee with a battlefield accessible by multiple entry and exit points to the rear. With only a single road and a rocky ford across the Potomac behind him at Sharpsburg, even Lee judged the position to be “a bad one” by comparison. Arguably, therefore, this secondary field on which Lee chose to fight proved to be substantially less favorable to his army and more favorable to the enemy than the position he had initially hoped to take. Although he did not know it, McClellan’s attack at South Mountain, informed by what he had learned in Special Orders No. 191, effectively negated the battlefield advantage that Lee had sought to achieve in Washington County.

Depleted Strength

McClellan’s attack on the South Mountain gaps created yet another knock-on effect detrimental to the Army of Northern Virginia—it compelled Lee to reassemble his army before either he or it was prepared. This resulted in a loss of combat strength when the fight at Sharpsburg broke out. The experiences of Longstreet’s command on September 14 and, to a lesser extent, of McLaws’ command on September 16-17 are instructive here. Informed estimates put Longstreet’s effective strength at approximately 7,800 men when his command made its forced march from Hagerstown on the morning of September 14. This march, made mostly on the quick, and even the double-quick (i.e., jogging), proved too taxing for many men to take, particularly those of Old Pete’s troops who lacked footwear. Consequently, when Longstreet reached the top of South Mountain, D.H. Hill estimated that his command “did not exceed four thousand men.” It is unknown how many of these men later caught up with the army on its march to Sharpsburg, but they were not available for at least the defense of Turner’s and Fox’s Gaps, clashes that caused significant casualties and resulted in a decisive Confederate reverse. Their experience illustrates the chaos into which McClellan’s sudden advance threw the Army of Northern Virginia.

Part of Stonewall Jackson’s command at Harpers Ferry, Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws’ Division made a grueling overnight march to Sharpsburg on September 16-17, playing a key role in the fighting in the West Woods.

McLaws’ situation provides a similar example. Detached from the rest of the army with Richard H. Anderson’s Division to besiege Harpers Ferry on the Maryland side of the Potomac River, McLaws’ Division suffered severe losses from straggling in the run-up to Sharpsburg. According to one strength estimate provided by John Owen Allen, 7,337 men comprised the four brigades of McLaws’ Division as of September 2. By September 13, this number had dropped to an estimated 3,778 men available for duty, meaning that while in Maryland, and even before the engagement at Crampton’s Gap the following day, 48.5 percent of McLaws’ men had abandoned the army.

The fights atop Maryland Heights and at Crampton’s Gap further depleted McLaws’ strength by another 929 men and officers killed, wounded, or missing/captured. Then, on the afternoon of September 16, Lee, scrambling desperately to reassemble his scattered army so that he could fight above the Potomac and achieve the “military success” that he hoped would encourage Marylanders to rebel, called McLaws from Harpers Ferry to Sharpsburg. The Georgian made a forced march that night which further reduced his strength by another 7.7 percent, or 220 men (probably an underestimate), leaving McLaws with only 2,629 effectives for the battle on September 17.

This overnight march must have been severe. To quote McLaws himself, “The straggling of men, wearied beyond further endurance, and of those without shoes and of others sick was very great, which accounts for the small force carried into action. But by the evening of the 18th most of the absentees had joined and my force was nearly as large as that I had carried into action on the 17th, although I had lost heavily in killed and wounded.” Brigadier General William Barksdale, whose four regiments of Mississippians marched with McLaws, recalled similarly, “a portion of my men had fallen by the wayside from loss of sleep and excessive fatigue, having been constantly on duty for five or six days, and on the march for almost the whole of the two preceding nights…I went into the fight with less than 800 men.”

Brigadier General Joseph Kershaw, a South Carolinian commanding a brigade in McLaws’ Division, reported that his men “were also under arms or marching nearly the whole of the nights of Monday and Tuesday, arriving at Sharpsburg at daylight on Wednesday morning, September 17…[M]any had become exhausted and fallen out on the wayside, and all were worn and jaded.” An unidentified soldier with the 8th Alabama, a part of Col. Alfred Cummings’s brigade in R.H. Anderson’s division agreed, calling the march to Shepherdstown “trying in the extreme.” Lastly, recalled James Dinkins of the 18th Mississippi:

“About daylight we reached Shepardstown [sic] on the Potomac river, and crossed over to the Maryland side, but we crossed with a small proportion of the command which began the march. We remember that Company ‘C,’ Eighteenth Mississippi, left Harper’s Ferry with over sixty men and three officers, but we went into the battle of ‘Sharpsburg’ with sixteen men and one officer. Other companies, of course, suffered similar dimunition. The march was one of the severest ever made by infantry troops.”

One cannot help but wonder what a difference it would have made to the Battle of Antietam if Lee had possessed more time to reassemble his army. Licensed Antietam battlefield guide Russell Rich argues in a 2022 study of Confederate straggling during the campaign that the loss of so many troops prior to Antietam did not diminish the combat effectiveness of Lee’s army on the battlefield. This conclusion seems to say more about the fighting prowess of veteran Confederate troops than it does about the army’s thin ranks. It cannot be ignored that Lee sought multiple times to launch an attack on the Federal right flank both during and after the fight at Antietam. A lack of available space due to a bend in the Potomac River and McClellan’s massing of artillery on that flank contributed to the maneuver’s failure, but Lee scarcely being able to muster 5,000 men for the endeavor also proved to be a key deficiency.

At no point on September 17 were Lee’s men able to recover the ground they lost in the early hours of the struggle. Counterattack certainly, and this Lee did, but recover their original lines or drive the Federals back to Antietam Creek, never. The battle thus ended as a Confederate defeat precisely because Lee did not have the men he required for an effective offensive, and he did not have the men because straggling significantly reduced the number present for action. This material weakness then persisted until the following day when Lee retired to Virginia because McClellan’s army had received reinforcements while Lee’s had not. The general summarized this situation in his campaign report, writing, “As we could not look for a material increase in strength, and the enemy’s force could be largely and rapidly augmented, it was not thought prudent to wait until he should be ready again to offer battle.” Systemic weakness caused by straggling, and exacerbated by high combat losses, forced Robert E. Lee to abandon his campaign and the effort to bring Maryland into the Confederate fold.

Even before McClellan’s unanticipated advance on September 13-14, Lee had complained to Jefferson Davis about straggling’s devastating effect on his army: “One great embarrassment is the reduction of our ranks by straggling, which it seems impossible to prevent with our present regimental officers. Our ranks are very much diminished I fear from a third to one-half of the original numbers.” The threat posed by McClellan’s advance then intensified the problem by causing Lee’s men to engage in a series of forced marches to rejoin the army in Maryland. By the time the clash erupted at Sharpsburg, Lee’s army—numbering between 50,000 and 70,000 men at the campaign’s outset, according to some estimates—had lost a crippling number of stragglers.

Straggling had a telling effect on the army Lee sent forth at Sharpsburg. In 1896, publisher Frank Leslie wrote: “Our artist, who…had a capital view of the field of battle, saw many instances in which mounted Confederate officers rode amid a body of stragglers and drove them back to the conflict.”

Straggling during the campaign angered Lee so much, in fact, that he complained about it in a missive to Jackson and Longstreet on September 22. Implementing a series of reforms at this point, including daily roll call, the creation of a permanent provost guard, and increased efforts by field officers to observe and account for the presence of their men, General Lee made sure that service in the Army of Northern Virginia became much more rule-bound after Sharpsburg than it had been to that point.

Quantifying the full extent to which men falling out of the ranks weakened the Army of Northern Virginia is probably impossible, although we can arrive at a reasonable estimate. To quote Darrell L. Collins’ summary of Confederate strength on September 30, less than two weeks after the epic battle, Lee’s army counted 52,189 men in its ranks. Compared to the fewer than 40,000 men with which Lee and others claimed to have fought the battle, one can only imagine what the outcome might have been had the Confederate commander possessed this additional 12,000 troops on September 17. It is doubtful that elements of the Union 2nd Corps would have penetrated the Confederate center as they did at the Sunken Road if Longstreet had another 5,000 men to throw into the fight. Similarly, Ambrose Burnside probably would not have been able to drive in Lee’s right flank if Jacob Cox’s 9th Corps had faced 3,000 men defending the heights above Antietam Creek instead of Colonel Henry L. Benning’s “little over four hundred.” Possessing an additional 4,000 men would have also given Lee the men he needed for the attack on the Federal right for which he ached so badly.

“At Great Disadvantage”

The examples of Longstreet on September 14 and McLaws on September 17 suggest that the hard marches forced by McClellan’s rapid advance contributed to reducing the number of combat effectives available to Lee by a sizable margin. D.H. Hill shared this viewpoint, stating, “Had all our stragglers been up, McClellan’s army would have been completely crushed or annihilated.” Combine the army’s decimation with it being compelled to fight on ground more favorable to the Federals than the position Lee first chose and a more urgent sense of the damage caused to the Confederate operation by the loss of Special Orders No. 191 becomes clear. Writing to Hill in February 1868, Lee referred to the loss of the orders as “a great calamity and subsequent reflection has not caused me to change my opinion.” From ruining Lee’s plan to fight along Beaver Creek and forcing him to defend the South Mountain passes, which itself caused significant casualties, to giving the Federals a more advantageous place to fight and reducing Confederate strength by pressing the army to reassemble on the quick, one cannot help but agree with Lee’s characterization of the orders’ loss as a disaster.

On February 15, 1868, the general himself told William Allan, an Army of Northern Virginia veteran and one of its earliest historians: “Had the Lost dispatch not been lost, and had McClellan continued his cautious policy for two or three days longer, I would have had all my troops reconcentrated on [the] Md. side, stragglers up, [and] men rested.”

Charles Marshall echoed this sentiment, writing in his war memoir that “Instead of being united and fresh as it would have been had General McClellan continued his slow rate of advance for twenty-four hours longer, as there is reason to believe he would have done but for the loss of the order…[the army] had to engage the enemy at great disadvantage.”

Longstreet’s men and those under D.H. Hill, Marshall continued, “went into the battle [at Sharpsburg] under the disheartening effects of the disaster at Boonsboro,’ and considerably reduced in number by that engagement, while those of General Jackson had to make a long march in intensely warm weather and go into battle without opportunity for necessary repose and refreshment.

“In considering the Maryland campaign, it is proper to take into account the effect of the accident of the lost order upon the result—a misfortune that was not incident to the plan of campaign, although it had a most important influence upon the result….The effect of the loss of that order does not show any want of wisdom or prudence in the policy of the invasion of Maryland in 1862. But for that, no battle need have been fought at Sharpsburg, or at South Mountain, or anywhere except at a time and upon terms of General Lee’s own selection.”

Supposing Marshall is correct, and taking into account Robert E. Lee’s own estimate of the harm caused to his operation by the loss of Special Orders No. 191, one cannot reasonably conclude other than to say that the discovery of the mislaid document by Private Barton Mitchell about noon September 13 contributed mightily to the Confederate defeat in Maryland. For that the credit must go to George McClellan, whose actions forced Lee into a difficult situation for which he was ill prepared, and who by doing so saved the republic when it faced the possibility of a terrible defeat that might have ended it for good.

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

Alexander Rossino writes from Boonsboro, Md. This article is adapted from his latest book, Calamity at Frederick (Savas Beatie, 2023).

The Sword That Spurred Ulysses Grant To Victory

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 18:37:57 +0000

This elaborate sword was presented to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War on April 23, 1864 by the U.S. Sanitary Commission Metropolitan Fair. The fair was a fundraiser for the Union Army and supported hospitals for wounded soldiers. Grant “won” the sword in a voting contest against competitor Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan.

The sword is rich in symbolism. The silver grip displays the head of a Greek soldier and military trophies; the gilt knuckle guard bears the head of Medusa, and the counterguard shows Hercules slaying the Nemean lion. The pommel is the head of Athena, goddess of warcraft, and set with rubies, diamonds and a sapphire.

Grant’s name is engraved on the sheath, along with the words, “Upon your sword sit laurel victory.” This phrase is taken from William Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, Scene III: “Upon your sword sit laurel victory! And smooth success be strew’d before your feet.”

Grant would go on to take the Confederate Army’s surrender at Appomattox and become U.S. President in 1869.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

The Old World Soldier Who Conquered the New

John Walker — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 14:00:00 +0000

For the sick, half-starved inhabitants of Tenochtitlán, island capital of the beleaguered Aztec empire, the new year of 1521 offered only severe hardship and continued bloodshed. Over the past eight months the city’s quarter million residents had suffered through the deaths of two emperors, Montezuma II and his brother Cuitláhuac; the loss of the entire upper echelon of the empire’s military and political elites to a cowardly Spanish massacre; and a 70-day scourge of smallpox that killed tens of thousands and claimed Cuitláhuac’s life, on December 4. His nephew Cuauhtémoc, as 11th Aztec emperor (known as the huey tlahtoani, or “great speaker”) and commander in chief, was left to defend the city against a coalition army of aggrieved Indians and determined Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés.

A claim that Aztecs conflated Cortés with Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent god depicted here, may be a Spanish fiction.

After reaching Hispaniola in 1506, Cortés prospered in the West Indies. Several years of civil service in Cuba, in the wake of its 1511 conquest by Diego Velásquez de Cuéllar, had earned him an encomienda, a large estate complete with thousands of indigenous laborers compelled to work in mining and agriculture. Appointed governor of Cuba, Velásquez was planning to finance his own campaign of conquest on the mainland of Mexico when he sent his secretary, Cortés, on a limited mission to explore the coast in 1519. Cortés and several veteran officers, however, opted to pursue a far more ambitious, albeit unsanctioned, undertaking—the expansion of the Spanish empire into Mexico and beyond, in the name of Christianity, while acquiring vast wealth, land and renown for themselves.

Disembarking at Tabasco on March 12, Cortés and 630 Spaniards moved inland and encountered the Mayans of Potonchán, who answered his request for talks with torrents of arrows, spears and stones that had little effect on Spanish armor. Facing overwhelming numbers, Spanish soldiers armed with harquebuses, crossbows, pikes and steel swords and accompanied by heavy artillery, mounted lancers and war dogs routed some 10,000 attackers, after which the defeated Mayans provided Cortés with 20 women slaves, among them the Nahuatl-speaking Malinche, who became Cortés’ invaluable interpreter, consort and mother of his first son.

Hernán Cortés.

Sailing north along the coast, the Spaniards came ashore near San Juan de Ulúa on April 21 and, in a veiled attempt to legitimize their expedition, founded a new colony at Veracruz “in His Majesty’s name.” Cortés then marched north to Cempoala, home to the Totonacs, where for the first time the conquistador leader moved to exploit a tributary population’s bitterness toward Tenochtitlán. Resentful subjects of the empire since 1480, the Totonacs forged an alliance with Cortés, who directed them to cease paying tribute, which could include military service, gold, foodstuffs, trade goods or captives (some of the latter were enslaved, while others were ritually sacrificed and eaten). After scuttling all but one of his ships (which sailed for Spain carrying slaves and treasure to be presented to Charles V, king of Spain and Holy Roman emperor), Cortés pushed inland on August 16 accompanied by 800 Totonac warriors.

Cortés and his host had barely entered Tlaxcalan territory when they were ambushed by a disciplined force of warriors led by their commander in chief, Xicotencatl the Younger. Home to upward of 150,000 people, Tlaxcala was a confederation of four hill provinces united against their Aztec archenemies in Tenochtitlán, who for decades had oppressed them with embargoes on salt, gold and cotton and demands for captives as tribute. After several clashes with the Spaniards, Xicotencatl the Elder and the city’s other lords halted hostilities and invited Cortés into their capital on September 23. Awed by the expedition’s horses and gunpowder weapons, Xicotencatl the Elder, who like Cortés was looking for powerful allies, agreed to an alliance (see “The Warriors Who Nearly Destroyed Cortés—Before Joining Him,” by Justin D. Lyons, online at HistoryNet.com).

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

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On November 8, with 2,000 Tlaxcalan warriors, porters, guides and cooks added to the Spanish ranks (the Totonacs had returned home), Cortés boldly marched into Tenochtitlán, where Montezuma extended the Spaniards a diplomatic if wary welcome. A week later events on the Gulf of Mexico gave Cortés a pretext to act. After Aztec tax collectors in the town of Nauhtla demanded local Totonacs pay their customary tribute and were refused, fighting broke out, and the Aztecs slew several Spaniards and Totonacs. Accusing Montezuma of collusion in the bloodshed, Cortés brazenly arrested the stunned emperor and ordered him to reside in the Spanish quarters under guard. After getting assurances of his safety from Malinche, the shaken emperor acquiesced, allowing Cortés to usurp his host and take effective control of the city for the next six months.

King Charles V.

The Spaniards had amassed eight tons of looted gold and silver when, with Cortés absent from the city, his deputy, Pedro de Alvarado, led an unprovoked attack against celebrants at the Festival of Toxcatl, hacking to death hundreds of senior military and political leaders and their families. The atrocity touched off a violent citywide revolt that trapped the Spanish/Tlaxcalan forces inside their quarters under a rain of spears, stones and arrows from surrounding rooftops. Cortés returned on June 24, 1520, to find Alvarado’s actions had put the entire expedition in peril, leaving the Spaniards no choice but to flee the city with their sick, wounded, artillery and treasure in tow.

At midnight on the rainy night of June 30, Cortés led his assembled host—1,300 Spaniards and 2,000 allies—from Tenochtitlán onto the Tacuba causeway, heading west out of the city. The van had marched but a quarter mile along the causeway when the escape attempt was discovered. Hundreds of canoes soon filled surrounding Lake Texcoco, bringing the long column strung out along the span under withering missile fire while warriors streamed out of the city on foot to attack the column from the rear. After six terrifying hours Cortés and other survivors stumbled ashore, having lost as many as 800 Spaniards and more than 1,000 allies killed, captured or drowned, along with most of the horses and all the gunpowder, cannons and treasure.

Montezuma II.

Xicotencatl the Elder.

Incredibly, the crushing defeat—recorded by the Spanish as La Noche Triste (“The Night of Sorrows”)—wasn’t enough to convince the redoubtable Cortés to abandon the campaign. Most of his veteran captains and mounted lancers, his interpreter, Malinche, and shipwright Martin López, the one man who could construct new warships for a return assault on Tenochtitlán, had survived the carnage. Gathering his wounded, hungry forces—about 500 Spaniards and 800 Tlaxcalans—Cortés led the small band 150 miles through hostile territory armed only with swords, crossbows, lances and pikes, reaching Tlaxcalan territory on July 9.

As Cortés himself recovered from a fractured skull, his fortunes turned for the better. Xicotencatl the Elder refused Cuauhtémoc’s offer of tribute relief and instead agreed to a new “perpetual alliance” with Cortés, while supply ships from Spain and Cuba—the Crown having dismissed mutiny charges against the expedition leader—arrived at Veracruz laden with men, horses, weapons, gunpowder and provisions. In August, backed by 2,000 loyal Tlaxcalans, Cortés captured the mountaintop redoubt of Tepeaca, a critical Aztecan ally, then used it as a base to subdue the surrounding villages. Some towns submitted voluntarily. Others were sacked, their male populations executed, their women and children branded and sold into slavery. By autumn 1520 Cortés was the strongest entity in the vast flatlands between the Popocatépetl and Pico de Orizaba volcanoes and had effectively cut off Tenochtitlán from the Gulf of Mexico. Before leaving Tepeaca, Cortés tasked López with constructing a fleet of 13 brigantines at Tlaxcala using native labor and salvaged hardware, after which the finished ships would be dismantled, carried over the mountains, reassembled and launched on Lake Texcoco.

Intent on first subduing the cities ringing the lake, Cortés gathered 550 Spanish infantry, 40 horsemen and 10,000 handpicked Tlaxcalans and in late December 1520 marched for Texcoco, still nominally an Aztec ally. As the Spaniards approached, they were met by emissaries from rebel Texcocan warlord Ixtlilxochitl II, who joined the advance with his own warriors and thousands of canoes. Arriving at Texcoco, Cortés and his growing force found it virtually abandoned, its tlahtoani and citizens having fled across the lake to Tenochtitlán. After sacking the city, Cortés pronounced Ixtlilxochitl Texcoco’s new tlahtoani, at a stroke bloodlessly adding another powerful ally to his ranks. The consequent Aztec loss of Texcoco, with its bountiful harvests and strategic location on the lake’s eastern shore, was a crippling blow to Tenochtitlán. As occurred at Tepeaca, the Spaniards’ success compelled the lords of neighboring cities to visit Cortés’ camp and offer their allegiance.

Despite the Spaniards’ advantages in arms and armor, Cortés small landing force was no match for superior Aztec forces. The key to victory was support from Indian allies.

In early January 1521, on learning that Chalca cities south of the lake were restive, Cortés led 200 Spaniards and 4,000 allies to sack Iztapalapa, while his lieutenant Gonzalo de Sandoval evicted Aztec garrisons from Chalco and Tlamanalco, loosening Tenochtitlán’s grip on the region. At the urging of his two powerful allies, Cortés further isolated Tenochtitlán by subduing Tlacopán, the last city-state of the Aztec Triple Alliance. (In 1427–28 Itzcoatl, the fourth Aztec emperor, had led Tenochtitlán, Texcoco and Tlacopán to decisive victory in their rebellion against Azcapotzalco, after which the victors had formed the Triple Alliance to share in future wars of conquest. By 1519, after nearly a century of aggressive expansion, the alliance was dominated by Tenochtitlán, its borders stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico south almost to Guatemala, which extracted tribute from nearly 500 cities and towns in the Valley of Mexico and beyond, backed by the constant threat of military force.)

After Sandoval repulsed a major Aztec attempt to retake Chalco on March 25, Cortés moved to subdue the region south of Lake Texcoco. With 300 infantry, 30 horsemen, 35 crossbowmen and harquebusiers, and 20,000 Tlaxcalan/Texcocan allies he seized Tlayacapan and Oaxtepec, then sacked Cuernavaca (April 13) and Xochimilco (April 16), further isolating Tenochtitlán from sources of supply and reinforcement. After five months of campaigning, Cortés had subdued or accepted the submission of almost all the cities on the lakeshore and in the Valley of Mexico, had received supplies and reinforcements, and was ready to march for Tenochtitlán. Intent on obtaining Cuauhtémoc’s unconditional surrender, Cortés was prepared to destroy the city block by block and let his allies sack it if necessary.

Cortés received good news when he returned to Texcoco: The brigantines were ready. Averaging 50 feet in length (Cortés’ flagship, La Capitana, was 65 feet long), each was armed with two guns and carried a captain, 12 oarsmen, six harquebusiers and six crossbowmen. The Spaniards launched them on Lake Texcoco on April 28. Cortés organized his remaining forces into three infantry divisions under Alvarado, Sandoval and Cristóbal de Olid, their objective to seize control of the main causeways into the city. Each division was allotted some 150 foot soldiers, 30 horsemen, 15 crossbowmen and harquebusiers and a detachment of native allies numbering around 8,000. Thousands more Texcocans and Tlaxcalans would follow Cortés’ brigantines in a flotilla of canoes commanded by Ixtlilxochitl, and the combined fleets would support the land assaults, blockade the city and destroy enemy vessels.

The Nahuatl-speaking Mayan captive woman Malinche (gesturing at center) served as Cortés’ interpreter and consort, facilitating his diplomatic efforts.

Alvarado and Olid departed Texcoco first, arriving at Tlacopán on May 25. The next morning they rode to Chapultepec, on the lake’s western edge, broke through the Aztec defenses and destroyed the aqueduct there, permanently severing Tenochtitlán’s source of fresh water. Over the next 75 days the city’s citizens would have to rely on grossly inadequate supplies of brackish water extracted from wells and springs.

Versus Armor

Tipped with razor-sharp obsidian points like that above, Aztec spears and arrows had little effect on Spanish armor. Cortés’ men carried harquebuses, crossbows and swords and were supported by artillery, mounted lancers and war dogs. That said, they were few in number.

With his ground units deployed, Cortés committed the brigantines to the fight on June 1. Observing smoke signals rising from the tiny island city of Tepepolco, warning Cuauhtémoc of the Spanish advance, Cortés landed with 150 men and wiped out that city’s entire garrison. Setting off once more, Cortés’ warships smashed through a flotilla of 600 Aztec canoes sent to intercept them, the brigantines’ high decks thwarting boarders and providing cover for harquebusiers and crossbowmen to fire and reload. “Nothing in the world gave me such joy as to see all 13 sails with a fair wind scatter the enemy,” recalled Sandoval, who observed the engagement from Iztapalapa. Following in Cortés’ wake, the Texcocan canoes destroyed any Aztec canoes that remained afloat. Exploiting his success, Cortés sailed on and seized the key fortress of Xoloc, on the southern causeway from Iztapalapa to Tenochtitlán. Olid then joined Cortés and Sandoval at Xoloc, further improving their strategic situation.

For his part, Cuauhtémoc was directing operations from a canoe in the lake, sending waves of Aztec warriors armed with spears and steel arrows (fashioned from Spanish swords retrieved from the lake) against Cortés, Sandoval and Olid at Xoloc and Alvarado at Tlacopán. Meanwhile, Aztec laborers erected fortifications, opened breaches along each causeway to close the roads to Spanish horsemen and planted sharp stakes in the lake’s shallow waters to pinion the brigantines. The emperor’s aggressive tactics and vast manpower reserves made Cortés’ advance slow and costly.

In mid-June, however, Sandoval sailed north of the city and blocked the last open causeway, leading from Tlatelolco (a subject of Tenochtitlán since 1473) to Tepeyac. Tenochtitlán was surrounded, cut off from all supplies, food, water and hope.

On June 10 and again on the 15th, as Sandoval and Alvarado pressed their respective attacks along the northern and western causeways, Cortés led Olid’s division on major assaults into the city from the south, encountering fierce Aztec resistance before withdrawing. A pattern soon emerged: Escorted by the brigantines, the Spaniards and their allies advanced each morning as far as possible into the city and fought all day before falling back to their fortified camps in the evening, destroying buildings along the way. Aztec laborers appeared each night to again dig ditches in the causeways, forcing the attackers to fill them in again the following day. By late June the besiegers were penetrating into the city at will, though Cortés was well aware of the danger of being ambushed and trapped inside the city. The tenacity of the defenders—facing land and water assaults daily on three fronts—was astounding.

As Aztec fortunes waned, more of its former allies joined Cortés, including contingents from Huexotzinco and Xochimilco. Morale inside the city plummeted when no festivals were held or crops were planted in June. The lack of able-bodied commoners available to sow crops brought on starvation and finally famine.

A massacre of Aztec leaders prompted a revolt in Tenochtitlán, forcing Cortés into a costly withdrawal on June 30, 1520, recorded by the Spanish as La Noche Triste (“The Night of Sorrows”).

Tenochtitlan, Aztec City-State.

An increasingly desperate Cuauhtémoc abruptly changed tactics and moved his remaining warriors to the neighboring island suburb of Tlatelolco, whose narrow streets and fortified marketplace precinct were better suited to urban warfare. Believing the Aztecs were fleeing, Cortés led a three-pronged attack against Tlatelolco on June 30 that he hoped would end all resistance. After initial gains, the attackers fell into an ambush and, with their withdrawal route blocked, suffered a stinging defeat in which some 20 conquistadors and 2,000 allies were slain. Worse yet, dozens of Spaniards and allied warriors were captured and ritually sacrificed. After watching their comrades slaughtered, most of the remaining allied warriors melted away, leaving Cortés to fear another Noche Triste.

In the final crisis of the campaign Cortés dispatched Spanish/allied contingents to aid two of his new allies against Aztec threats. Two quick victories restored the strategic advantage to Cortés, and the indigenous army that had abandoned him returned, leaving Cuauhtémoc unable to exploit his victory. After his allies returned, daily incursions into both Tlatelolco and Tenochtitlán proper resumed, and though several brigantines had been lost, the allied fleets still controlled Lake Texcoco, and the blockade of the city remained in place.

Tactical Takeaways

Enemy of my enemy. Cortés shrewdly allied with the Aztecs’ bitter enemies and disaffected tributary states. Without them the Spanish could never have prevailed. Carrot and the stick. Cortés’ combination of diplomacy and violence bore fruit. By contrast, a deputy’s decision to massacre Aztec leaders nearly cost the Spaniards their lives and an empire. But can you keep it? Cortés conquest was undoubtedly a signal achievement. But after a few centuries of Spanish rule, the subject states of New Spain revolted.

By mid-July conditions within Tenochtitlán were appalling. Sick, starving refugees filled the streets, tribute was being interdicted and most of the chinampas (floating gardens) that provided the bulk of the city’s food had been destroyed. On their daily sorties the attackers had taken to dismantling entire city blocks, tearing down temples and houses to give Spanish horsemen room to operate and crossbowmen and harquebusiers fields of fire.

By month’s end Aztec attacks on the Spanish camps had ceased and exhausted laborers were no longer able to sever the causeways. Aztec prisoners reported that the city’s inhabitants were starving, and Cuauhtémoc had resorted to conscripting women to fill his ranks. Early on July 27 Cortés was at Xoloc when he saw smoke rising from Tlatelolco’s main temple, a sign Alvarado had overrun the last Aztec line of defenses there and captured the great marketplace, ending all organized resistance. Cuauhtémoc refused to surrender, though, prolonging his people’s suffering, and it wasn’t until August 13 that he was apprehended while fleeing across the lake with his family. With Tenochtitlán reduced to smoking ruins, the Aztec empire had ceased to exist. Brought before Cortés, Cuauhtémoc was tortured in a futile attempt to discover the whereabouts of any stashed gold, then was forced to play the role of puppet ruler before being executed on false charges in 1525.

After reaching Tenochtitlán in September 1520, smallpox claimed almost 100,000 citizens’ lives. In the ensuing decades epidemics of measles, whooping cough, mumps, influenza and typhus helped reduce the population of central Mexico from the more than 8 million when Cortés landed to little more than 1 million a half century later. The steady depopulation of the Taino peoples of Hispaniola due to disease and overwork—their numbers fell from 200,000 in 1492 to 90,000 in 1515—forced its Spanish governor in February 1510 to authorize the transport of 250 African slaves from Spain to work its gold mines. In August 1517 Charles V authorized the governor to import 4,000 more. Meanwhile, in the two centuries after 1492 some 750,000 people left Spain to escape poverty or seek adventure in the New World.

With almost no oversight from the mother country Cortés and his men acted as a law unto themselves, destroying and founding new cities and turning entire conquered populations into indentured servants, their legacy one of conquest, colonization, depopulation and exploitation. Indeed, at their peak fully a quarter of all imperial Spanish revenues would be bullion from Mexico and Peru; 180 tons of gold and 16,000 tons of silver reached Spanish shores from the New World between 1500 and 1650, fueling Spain’s rise as a superpower and funding Charles V’s wars in Italy and against the Protestant Reformation.

This depiction of the fall of Tenochtitlán hints at the dark future that lay in store for its survivors, thousands of whom would succumb to disease.

The conquest of central and southern Mexico was followed by the violent subjugation of the rest of Mesoamerica—comprising the modern countries of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize—and parts of South America. Gradually, Franciscan friars arrived to spread Christianity, bureaucrats replaced the conquistadors, and in 1535 Antonio de Mendoza became 1st Viceroy of New Spain. “The conquistadors, who put an end to human sacrifice and torture on the Great Pyramid in Mexico City,” wrote historian Victor Davis Hanson, “sailed from a society reeling from the Grand Inquisition and the ferocious Reconquista and left a diseased and nearly ruined New World in their wake.”

John Walker is a California-based freelance writer and a Vietnam War veteran. For further reading he recommends Tenochtitlán 1519–21: Clash of Civilizations, by Si Sheppard; Conquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest, by Fernando Cervantes; and Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power, by Victor Davis Hanson.

This story appeared in the Winter 2024 issue of Military History magazine.

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How Erwin Rommel Has Been Lost in Translation

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 18:27:49 +0000

In late October 1917, a detachment of German mountain troopers weary from hard Alpine fighting on the Isonzo front were crossing the river Torre with a group of Italian prisoners. The ordinarily calm waters of the river had swollen into a raging flood after constant heavy rain. Suddenly an Italian prisoner was dragged away by the current. Screaming and flailing, he whirled downstream, sinking under the weight of the large pack he was carrying. An unexpected rescuer came to his aid. The battle-hardened German officer who had defeated the Italian’s comrades and overseen his capture went galloping after him. Driving his horse straight into the torrent, the German risked getting washed away as he drew the helpless prisoner, hanging onto one of his stirrups, to safety.

The German officer was young Oberleutnant Erwin Rommel, and this act of compassion was typical of him. It would be a cornerstone of his career during two world wars in which contempt of one’s enemies and xenophobia were idealized by authorities in power in Germany. Surprisingly, Rommel chose to write about this rescue and other similar anecdotes of humanity in his 1937 World War I memoir, Infantry Attacks! Then a military instructor, Rommel intended to use the book as teaching material for future soldiers training to fight in the Wehrmacht—during a dark era when popular culture in Germany was at its most unmerciful. His original German text offers valuable insights about his outlook and approach to war that censorship and mistranslation had hidden from history.

A Controversial Character

Erwin Rommel is one of the most controversial figures in World War II and German history. Awarded Imperial Germany’s highest decoration for valor, the Pour le Mérite, for his impressive actions as a junior officer during World War I, Rommel reached the pinnacle of his fame during World War II as a brilliant Panzer leader in the 1940 conquest of France and as the daring “Desert Fox” who fought—and ultimately lost to—British and Allied troops in North Africa from 1941 to ’43. Rommel would go on to direct the fortifications of the Normandy coast in preparation for the Allied invasion of France, and command Germany’s Army Group B during the D-Day landings in 1944.

Erwin Rommel in 1912.

Rommel never joined the Nazi Party nor did he receive any Party decorations, despite the fact that joining would have boosted his career—as it did conversely for Ferdinand Schörner, also a professional soldier, World War I veteran and Pour le Mérite recipient who opted to become a Nazi Party member.

Despite the best efforts of Nazi propaganda to cast Rommel as a hardline ex-SA storm trooper, which he was not, and Allied efforts to depict him as a coldblooded fascist thug, Rommel confounded the expectations of both sides with his unpredictable and humanistic behavior during the war. He disobeyed Adolf Hitler’s infamous Commando Order of 1942 demanding that all Allied “irregular” troops captured were to be delivered to Heinrich Himmler’s security services for immediate execution. Numerous Allied POWs attested to Rommel’s humane treatment of them.

Among them was Capt. Roy Wooldridge of the British Army’s Royal Corps of Engineers, who credited Rommel with saving his life. Wooldridge was captured by a German U-Boat crew while on a secret 1944 mission to scout obstacles around the Normandy coast.

Although Wooldridge was told by interrogators that he would be shot, Rommel unexpectedly summoned Wooldridge, sparing him from a firing squad and sending him off to France after giving him a beer and a pack of cigarettes. “When I got to the prisoner of war camp, a German guard who spoke English said, ‘You’re a very lucky man. If you hadn’t been to see Rommel you would have been shot as a saboteur,’” Wooldridge told the BBC in 2014.

Plotting Against Hitler?

Disillusioned with Hitler’s leadership as early as 1942, Rommel became part of a group of German Army officers conspiring to remove Hitler from power. Contrary to common perceptions, there was not an absence of German Resistance nor did such resistance only come into existence when the war appeared to be closing in around Germany in 1944; pockets of dissent had existed within Germany’s military from much earlier and became more active over time.

Having burned many of his personal papers, particularly from early 1944, to protect himself and others, Rommel’s activities against Hitler—particularly his knowledge or lack thereof regarding Claus von Stauffenberg’s failed July 20 assassination attempt—remain debated.

Erwin Rommel, on horseback center left, passes through a village along with fellow officers and men of the 124th (6th Württemberg) Infantry Regiment during World War I. This photo was one of many saved in Rommel’s personal estate.

What is indisputable is that Hitler and other leading Nazis perceived Rommel to be a threat and acted quickly to get rid of him. Severely wounded by a plane that strafed his staff car in Normandy on July 17 and left him with a fractured skull, Rommel was executed on Hitler’s orders on Oct. 14, 1944. Representatives of Hitler came to Rommel’s home and threatened to harm his family unless he agreed to commit suicide—immediately. With the house surrounded by Gestapo and SS men, Rommel complied, and took cyanide he was given on an isolated roadside less than 15 minutes from his driveway. Nazi officials concealed the cause of Rommel’s death, initially claiming he had succumbed to wounds from a “car accident” without mentioning a plane strafing.

Doctors who examined Rommel’s body were threatened to falsify his cause of death. Authorities transformed Rommel’s funeral into a propaganda spectacle to rally public support for Hitler. Witnessing Rommel’s executioners use his funeral as political theater was a lifelong source of pain and anger for Rommel’s then 15-year-old son Manfred, aware of the true cause of his father’s death. News of Rommel’s demise was initially celebrated in the Allied press. The darker story emerged after the war was over.

Since then, Rommel has been the focus of endless debate—celebrated, reviled, doubted and admired. Was he a hero? A hopeless fence-sitter? A would-be assassin? A military genius or a blunderer? Although this author is prepared to venture well-researched opinions on these matters, that is not the purpose of this article. Instead, readers of this story are invited to cast an eye back to the start of Rommel’s career and the experiences he recorded in the original German text of his 1937 book, Infantry Attacks! (Infanterie Greift An), which provides valuable clues about Rommel’s philosophy and ethos.

Censoring Rommel

The book is inextricably bound up with the story of Rommel’s life and had a propelling effect on his career. It launched him to the heights of military command, unlocked barriers to armored warfare, and paved his road to Africa and Normandy—and, most fatefully, brought him into contact with Hitler, the man who sealed his doom. It was also poorly translated into English. The U.S. Army produced translations of the book in 1943 and 1944, which were heavily redacted and contained errors. Phrases and entire passages were removed. All color and emotion were drained from the original language. This changed not only the content but the tone of the writing.

This photograph showing smoke rising from a North African battlefield was one of many taken by Rommel with his Leica camera during World War II. Rommel became famous as “The Desert Fox” in part due to his World War I book.

With Rommel’s personality scrubbed out of the book, readers were left only with a bare skeleton of his work. That bare skeleton has shaped perceptions of Rommel among English readers. It might appear to anyone picking up the U.S. Army’s rendition of Rommel’s writing that he was a bland technocrat who produced one of the most convoluted and tedious war memoirs written by any officer who ever dared to pick up a pen. The contrast between the common 1944 English translation, which is about as exciting as reading an encyclopedia, and the otherwise dashing figure of Rommel is enough to leave a person baffled.

Although Rommel was a meticulous teacher of troops and intended his experiences to be used as a textbook—a blend of memoir with “lessons learned”—the original German book has much more historical value than the tactical teachings it contains, which so far have been the only thing that most English readers have been able to appreciate about it.

Nothing in the material that was censored contained gory, obscene or political language, but ordinary passages for any soldier’s wartime memoir. Many removed passages were ones in which Rommel came across as more relatable or sympathetic on a human level, such as his anecdote of finding a wounded Frenchman by a mountain hut who is subsequently tended by Rommel’s troops, his care for his horse, and friends’ funerals.

Working to produce English translations in the middle of World War II, the U.S. Army also removed passages that they may have worried would intimidate Allied soldiers or civilians, such as some passages describing soldiers’ deaths, violence, or grim scenes. Some praise for German troops was removed, as well as a reference in which Rommel clearly states that he has no fear of Russians. The Russians—allies in World War II, of course—in that sentence were conveniently changed to “Romanians.”

Clues About Rommel From His Writing

Rommel’s use of the German language makes for interesting study. His writing is distinctly straightforward with a colloquial South German twist. Patterns of expression emerge. As an author, Rommel showed a tendency to remove direct references to himself from his own narrative. While this is not unusual in the German language, the lengths that Rommel went through to avoid focus on himself is unique—especially when it comes to describing the hardships of battle or frontline conditions.

Although he didn’t hesitate to describe himself in decision-making, he tended to make difficult or uncomfortable situations into “we” and “us” experiences, or simply speak of the tribulations of war in a more abstract sense. It is clear that Rommel did not wish to complain nor describe his own sense of suffering, but referred to himself as part of a group—and above all, focused on the sacrifices of his comrades. This attitude can often be found in the memoirs and statements of war veterans who wish for others to focus on the deeds of their friends around them rather than on themselves.

German soldiers charge up a hill during the spring 1940 Battle of France in this photo also taken by Rommel. A dedicated instructor of infantry troops, Rommel also had keen interest in armored warfare.

A sense of deep affection for his comrades is manifest in Rommel’s writing. He referred to his troops in endearing terms, in many cases as “mein Häuflein”—meaning “my little flock,” as if they were a flock of sheep who need to be tended or a small handful of something to be looked after. He stressed his feelings of responsibility towards his men, particularly in situations where they were in danger and he felt compelled to protect them; in one instance, Rommel risked his entire force to save a group of their comrades who were stranded amid enemy forces, taking a “one for all, all for one” type of attitude.

Rommel wrote tributes to fallen comrades, recording their achievements, deaths and funerals. He later revisited former battlefields and photographed his friends’ graves. Additionally, Rommel devoted what sometimes seems like an inordinate amount of energy into building fortifications to protect his men from harm, spending much time analyzing and improving shelters and dugouts. The amount of effort he put into improving structures for defense suggests that Rommel was actually more cautious and circumspect on the front than he is commonly perceived to have been.

‘Homeland’ not ‘Fatherland’

Thought-provoking word choices pop up frequently in Rommel’s writings. While it has been assumed that Rommel had no taste for music or literature, his narrative contains several references to songs and culture, including an ironic reference to a scene from a Richard Wagner opera.

It’s also worth noting that Rommel never used the word “Vaterland” (“Fatherland”) to describe Germany, instead preferring to use “Heimat”—a folksy term meaning “homeland” which wasn’t quite German nationalists’ cup of tea. While the term “Vaterland” was often used by the Nazis to stress the concept of Germany as a strong unified country under Hitler’s rule, “Heimat” is an old-fashioned term that can refer to one’s native region and is non-political. Since the book was published within the Third Reich, when Nazism and support for Hitler were encouraged on every level of society, Rommel had no reason not to appeal to mainstream Nazi political sentiments in his book; indeed, it might have made his work more popular. Yet the book contains no mentions of a Führer nor a “new Fatherland”.

Rommel was a native of the Swabian Alps, and after serving as an infantryman on the Western Front early in World War I, was selected to become part of the Württemberg Mountain Battalion, an elite unit of Gebirgsjäger troops—German army mountain rangers. These rangers are highly mobile, extremely resilient and adaptable, and trained to maneuver and fight in all manner of harsh mountain environments. They were and continue to be among the most elite units in German-speaking nations. Entitled to great cultural esteem due to their abilities and affinity with the mountains, they are entitled to wear the symbol of the Edelweiss flower.

Training troops For the Wilderness

The Edelweiss, whose name means “noble white,” is a legendary bloom known for growing in the most austere mountain environments and being difficult to reach. It is a symbol not only of beauty but of hardiness and resilience. Still worn by Gebirgsjäger troops today, the Edelweiss patch was also a hard-earned symbol that Rommel was entitled to wear. It is visible on his cap in several of his World War I photos.

Rommel’s writings reveal his strong sense of identity as a mountain ranger, which arguably has never been properly appreciated by historians. Although he built strong bonds with his men in the trenches of the Argonne, one of the singular events in World War I that truly had a transformative effect on Rommel and his future leadership was his becoming a mountain ranger. Within this close-knit group, Rommel quickly developed a strong sense of pride, along with confidence in harsh training and an attitude of fearlessness. Camaraderie and the tests of combat convinced Rommel that, together, he and his men could accomplish nearly anything.

Rommel interacts with his troops from his Sd.Kfz. 250 “Greif” armored half-track command vehicle in North Africa. Becoming disillusioned with Hitler as early as 1942, Rommel was implicated in a conspiracy to remove the Führer from power and was forced to take poison by Hitler’s representatives after being severely wounded at Normandy in July 1944.

The Rommel that emerged as a skilled commander of mountain rangers was the same Rommel who would become the “Desert Fox” in North Africa—a man who excelled in the wilderness and at molding soldiers into masters of mobile combat, who could all withstand not only battle but the very elements of nature. An intense spirit of individuality, pride and elite group identity, as well as feelings of a close personal bond with Rommel as their commander, remained with many Afrika Korps veterans for their whole lives. The seeds of this future success are clear to be seen in Rommel’s proud and emotional writings about his love for the mountain troops.

Themes and Slang

Nature forms a major theme in Rommel’s narrative. He had a special flair for describing natural environments such as forests, trees, mountains, and geographic features, as well as elemental forces like thunder, lightning, clouds and different types of storms. Even in the midst of grim battles, Rommel somehow appreciated his natural surroundings and found a way to draw attention to it in writing. His writings on nature are poetic, highly descriptive and sometimes romanticized. In one instance, for example, Rommel compared meadows to the Elysian Fields of Roman mythology.

Despite Rommel’s sense of poetry about nature, his writings abound with slang common to soldiers’ memoirs. Rommel wrote with an understated and ironic sense of humor, and—with a sly attitude similar to the Civil War’s “Gray Ghost,” Col. John Singleton Mosby—clearly enjoyed taking enemies by surprise and chasing fleeing foes. Rommel’s writings on action are far from clinical. Gunfire “rips through” things, men are “gunned down,” and planned actions will be a “piece of cake”—or even “fun”. Rommel’s mix of slang, irony and hard-edged soldierly humor is characteristic of the memoirs of many military professionals.

Humane Treatment of Enemies

Another factor that stands out throughout Rommel’s book is his humane treatment of enemies. The amount of times that Rommel gave his enemies opportunities to surrender rather than shoot them is surprising—in fact, there are several cases when, as Rommel gained opportunities to surprise formidable enemy forces, readers might fairly wonder if opening fire might have been a more practical battlefield measure than yelling at foes to give themselves up.

Rommel however made a constant habit of requesting surrenders even when it seemed clearly inconvenient or downright dangerous to do so. He frequently spoke with prisoners afterwards and gives them cigarettes. In a mirrorlike foreshadowing of events at St. Valery during World War II in 1940, Rommel invited captured officers to have a meal with him. As in 1940, the captured officers were understandably too upset by their situation to appreciate this gesture. But it’s worth noting that this naïve attempt at magnanimity was one that Rommel would repeat in World War II.

Young Rommel also helped enemy wounded, and in one instance intervened to stop his own men from harming POWs. It’s worth mentioning that Rommel, in describing these anecdotes and choosing to include them in his military textbook, risked coming across as “weich,” or “soft,” in Nazi Germany. His anecdotes of showing kindness to enemies did not correspond to the general sense of bloodthirsty nationalism whipped up by Kaiser Wilhelm II during the First World War nor the iron-hearted cruelty advertised as being “strong” in Hitler’s Germany. Rommel could arguably have gotten farther by describing himself being merciless rather than being empathetic.

If anything, the passages attest not only to Rommel’s inner principles but his independence. As a military instructor during the Third Reich, Rommel must have been aware of the values that the regime wanted to instill in future soldiers, but instead chose to set an example of humanity for his students even if it did not match popular ideology. His behavior also forms a continuum with what Allied POWs witnessed during World War II—that Rommel’s compassionate treatment of POWs was not part of any postwar mythologizing, but was rather a real part of his character that was evident when he was a young man.

World War I had a profound impact on Rommel. Haunted by his experiences, Rommel would return to his former battlegrounds, form a veterans’ group, write about, teach about and dwell on his battlefield experiences for the rest of his life. He also wore his Pour le Mérite medal, earned among his beloved mountain troops, constantly until it chipped and faded. There are many more insights to be gained about Rommel’s early transformation into an effective war leader from his memoir—too many to describe in one article. However, what truly stands out is that, contrary to the commonly read, clinical English translations produced during World War II, Rommel was a gifted writer who expressed more about ethics in war than has been previously realized.

Zita Ballinger Fletcher is Editor of MHQ and the author of Erwin Rommel: First War, A New Look at Infantry Attacks, published in 2023.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

A Battle Ulysses S. Grant Couldn’t Quite Win

Gordon Berg — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 13:45:00 +0000

They came for Wyatt Outlaw in the dark of night. Burning torches lit their white robes and hoods, masking their identities but illuminating the evil intentions in their hearts. They snatched Outlaw from his home in front of his family, dragged him down Main Street in Graham, N.C., mutilated his body, and hanged him from a tree in the courthouse square. His “crime” was being a Black man active in the Union League and holding public office in Alamance County. His death was recorded as “misadventure” at the hands of persons unknown.

Fergus Bordewich

Depredations like this and worse occurred by the thousands throughout the violent South against newly freed African Americans in the years after the Civil War, perpetrated by White supremacist groups collectively known as the Ku Klux Klan. In Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction (Knopf, 2023), Fergus M. Bordewich chronicle this devastating chapter in American history and the determined efforts by President Ulysses Grant to break the violent grip of the Klan during Reconstruction. Hard-won legislation, championed by Grant, and the dedicated efforts of resilient federal judges and juries backed by the gleam of Union Army bayonets broke the power of the Klan. But unlike Grant’s Civil War campaigns, the victory was not decisive. The seeds of domestic terrorism cultivated after the war have periodically found fertile ground in American society during times of social and political turbulence. Bordewich’s book is excellent history and a timely warning.

Why did you decide to do a book about Grant’s war against the Klan?

“Klan War” evolved naturally from several of my previous books in which I wrote about the significance of slavery and race in the Early Republic, the development of the Underground Railroad, the Compromise of 1850, and most recently in the Civil War, in “Congress at War.” I wanted to show what homegrown American terrorism looked like, how it was defeated by Grant, and what its consequences were.

Much ink has been spilled about the supposed failures of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidential administrations. Should the efficacy of his presidency be reevaluated in light of his war against the Klan?

Definitely, it should. Grant’s deep personal commitment to the extension of full citizenship and human rights to Black Americans made his one of the most ambitious and consequential presidencies in our history. Overall, his presidency was mixed: as is well known, some members of his administration were corrupt, his efforts to acquire Santo Domingo did not succeed, and his enlightened Indian policy did not ultimately prevail. But after Reconstruction, his reputation was ruthlessly destroyed both by resurgent advocates of the Lost Cause and their Democratic allies, who disdained him precisely because of his commitment to Black civil rights and Reconstruction.

How important was Nathan Bedford Forrest in the formation, organization, and spread of the Ku Klux Klan?

Forrest was a wealthy prewar slave-dealer and a war criminal as well as a talented cavalry commander. But he was not the founder of the Klan. He was recruited by its early organizers to serve as its first “Grand Wizard.” Traveling around the South, he served as a sort of reactionary Johnny Appleseed: wherever he went, new Klan “dens” sprang up behind him, and violence soon followed. Most probably, he also encouraged the Klan to develop the guerilla cavalry tactics that were its trademark. Of course, those tactic were used not against soldiers but against unarmed, helpless, and isolated freed people and white Republicans.

How does Grant’s war against the Klan equate to a battle to save Reconstruction?

Without Grant’s decisiveness, both military and legal, the Klan would have continued to overwhelm the embryonic two-party system in the former Confederate states. The Klan’s political goal was to destroy biracial democracy in the South; Grant’s was to protect it. When the Klan was finally faced by federal soldiers instead of hapless civilians, it caved.

Most people associate Klan depredations being inflicted against poor, rural, uneducated Blacks. You argue that the opposite is true. Explain.

Many rural freed people were certainly victims of the Klan. But the Klan’s primary target was the new class of (mostly) once-enslaved men who rose to positions of local and later county and statewide political leadership. Their “ignorance” is a racist trope. Many were at least as well educated as their white neighbors. Some had university educations. White Republicans were also targets of the Klan. The last thing that southern reactionaries wanted to see was viable biracial government in which Blacks exhibited equal or even superior talent to white men.

What was it about the Klan that attracted prominent White community leaders to its ranks?

There’s a common idea that the Klan was made up of hoodlums, louts, and thugs. Such men did join the Klan, along with poor white farmers and other workingmen. But it was founded and almost everywhere led by the so-called “better class” of men in their communities, commonly former Confederate officers, landowners, lawyers, doctors, even journalists and ministers. Such men saw themselves as the “natural” leaders in their communities. Their stated goal was to permanently enshrine white supremacy, a term which Klan members proudly embraced.

You argue that by 1872 the organized Klan was in retreat. Why wasn’t its defeat decisive?

Once Grant broke the Klan as an organized movement, northern interest in the South’s problems rapidly waned. Especially after 1874, funding for both occupation troops and federal prosecutors shriveled, as white supremacist “redeemers” steadily recaptured state governments. With reactionary Democrats in control, terrorism was no longer necessary to subvert the rights of the freed people. That would now be done mainly by political means.

Who were the front-line heroes in Grant’s war against the Klan?

While many federal soldiers and law officers struggled heroically against the Klan, two stand out. Major Lewis Merrill of the 7th Cavalry led the crackdown on the most Klan-infested counties of South Carolina. A West Point graduate with legal training and a sterling record hunting down Confederate guerrillas in Missouri during the Civil War, he was the perfect man for the job. Keeping the Klan on the run with his veteran troops and penetrating it with spies, he secured thousands of arrests. On the legal side, Grant’s attorney general, Amos Akerman, a passionately committed Georgia Republican, brought immense energy to the prosecution of the Klan.

My book is one of history, not present-day politics. But a few conclusions are inescapable. The United States is not so exceptional that it is somehow absolved from the potential for organized terrorist violence of the type we have seen in other countries. The story of Reconstruction and the Klan war further demonstrates that rights that we take for granted—as freedmen did in the 1870s—can be taken away again. There are forces in today’s America that have the potential to undermine our most basic democratic processes and institutions, as we saw on January 6, 2021. We must remain vigilant if we are not to let our democracy slip through our fingers.

This article first appeared in America’s Civil War magazine

This Ornery Knight Inspired Shakespeare’s Falstaff

Jon Guttman — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 19:44:02 +0000

Even though it officially lasted 116 years, the Hundred Years War was really just part of a long-running rivalry over land, power and inheritance between England and France that one may say, allowing for interruptions, raged from the Norman invasion of 1066 to Emperor Napoleon’s downfall in 1815. In the course of multiple reigns, the Hundred Years War was, as with its predecessors, replete with major and minor players, including such national heroes as England’s Henry V and France’s Maid of Orleans.

One of the war’s most intriguing characters, however, was not exactly heroic… but then again, he did not really exist. Or did he? At least in part?

Enter Shakespeare

In 1597 William Shakespeare published Henry IV Part 1, and with it introduced a corpulent, boastful knight who when not performing feats of extreme self-preservation on the battlefield, where he states “the better part of valor is discretion,” is carousing on borrowed or stolen money at the Boar’s Head Inn. Such is the perverse charisma of this “villainous, abominable misleader of youth” that he spends much of the play leading the young Prince Hal down a primrose path of self-indulgent dissolution. In the sequel, Henry IV Part 2, the old king dies and Hal assumes not only the throne but the responsibilities that it requires—and in so doing, puts aside “childish things,” starting with Sir John Falstaff.

Although Falstaff does not appear in Henry V, his death is mentioned, heralding an essential final step in the new king’s maturity. Such was the popularity of this outrageous but amiable reprobate, however, that one of Shakespeare’s most avid fans, Queen Elizabeth I, allegedly (though not confirmed for certain) suggested that he turn him loose once more, this time in the realm of romantic farce, a request that the bard brought to the stage in 1602 as The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Although no knight of the Hundred Years War quite matched the girth or gall of Sir John Falstaff, the evolution of his name includes an intriguing element of reality. Initially, Shakespeare was going to name the character Sir John Oldcastle, who really existed as a leader of the Lollards, a proto-Protestant sect—and a friend of Prince Hal’s until even that proved insufficient to prevent his being burned at the stake on Dec. 14, 1417.

When one of Oldcastle’s descendants, Henry Brooke, 11th Earl Cobham, learned of Shakespeare’s latest play and its intended comic lead, he bitterly objected. Deciding, like his character, that “the better part of valor is discretion,” Shakespeare switched to another name from the era, only this time altering it somewhat—from Sir John Fastolf to Sir John Falstaff.

The rest was theatrical history… or was it? It turns out that Falstaff’s faux namesake had a cloud of disgrace hanging over his own head for more than a decade—and for Fastolf, it was no laughing matter.

The Real ‘Falstaff’

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Sir John Fastolf was born on Nov. 6, 1380 in Caister Hall, Norfolk, to minor gentry. His father, also John Fastolf, died in 1383 and his mother, Mary Park, on May 2, 1406. Amid his education he claimed to have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1392-93, and also served as squire to Sir Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. In 1401 he joined the retinue of King Henry IV’s second son, Thomas of Lancaster (later Duke of Clarence), with whom his first military duty was to keep the peace in the parts of Ireland ruled by the English. While there he met Millicent Tibetot, heiress of Robert, Lord Tiptoft, whose first husband, Sir Stephen Scrope, had died in 1408. At age 40, she was a dozen years Fastolf’s senior, but that did not stop their being wed on Jan. 13, 1409.

Whatever else Millicent had to offer, the marriage increased John’s assets five times over, with land holdings in Castle Combe and Bathampton in Wiltshire, Oxtenton in Gloucestershire and plots in Somerset and Yorkshire. He was entitled to 240 pounds per year, 100 of which he gave his wife but none to his stepson by her previous marriage, Stephen Scrope. John and Millicent had no children. To paraphrase The Taming of the Shrew, Fastolf had “wived it wealthfully,” a not uncommon factor in medieval weddings. In so doing, by funny coincidence, he handily achieved with one widow what his semi-namesake, Falstaff, failed to do with two in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

In 1415 Fastolf sailed to northern France to take part in King Henry V’s invasion, under the direct command of John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford. A surviving warrant from the Exchequer dated June 18 noted payment due Fastolf and the 10 men-at-arms and 30 archers who came with him.

To Battle

On Aug. 18 he and his men were among the 2,300 men-at-arms and 9,000 archers under the Duke of Clarence, investing the Norman port of Harfleur. Although the ensuring siege featured a dozen large cannons—their first use by the English—Harfleur’s fortifications made it possible for a 100-man garrison under Jean, Sieur de’Estouteville to hold out long enough for 300 reinforcements to arrive under Raoul, Sieur de Gaucourt, who took charge of the defense.

The French stated that if their army did not come to their relief by Sept. 23, they would surrender. They capitulated a day earlier, leaving it to the paroled knights to collect their own ransom while townsfolk willing to swear fealty to King Henry were allowed to return home and others were ordered to depart.

This illustration of men-at-arms who fought during Henry V’s campaign shows, from left to right, a crossbowman, an English archer, and a French infantryman. More troops however fell to dysentery than to enemies in combat.

The heaviest losses in the Siege of Harfleur were due to dysentery rather than combat. Many of Henry’s 5,000 casualties fell victim to the “bloody flux,” with at least 39 dead and 1,330 sent back to England to convalesce. Among its victims was Fastolf, who consequently was absent from the “band of brothers” who slaughtered the French at Agincourt on Oct. 25. He returned to Harfleur that winter, however, to help fend off a French attempt to retake the town.

Fastolf’s fortunes rose significantly thereafter, when he was formally dubbed a knight in January 1416. In 1420 King Henry compelled the French to sign the Treaty of Troyes, naming him regent to King Charles VI, a deal sealed by his marriage to the king’s daughter, Catherine, while the king’s son, the dauphin Charles, was disinherited. In the wake of this event, Fastolf was made Master of the Household to the Duke of Bedford, governor of Maine and Anjou, and when the English occupied Paris in 1421, he was appointed “governor” of the Bastille.

Scotland had entered the conflict on France’s side in 1419, and on March 22, 1421, the French, bolstered by the Army of Scotland, won a major victory at Baugé, in which the Duke of Clarence was killed. Worse for the English, Henry V died of a sudden bout of illness on Aug. 31 that same year. That left the English crown sitting unsteadily on the 9-year-old head of Henry VI, with the Duke of Bedford serving as his regent. On Oct. 21, 1422, King Charles VI died and Dauphin Charles set out to regain his throne. The Hundred Years War resumed.

The Battle of the Herrings

Fastolf was in Bedford’s army at the Battle of Verneuil-sur-Avre on Aug. 17, 1424, in which the again-outnumbered English turned the tables on the French, Scots and Milanese mercenaries after a climactic 45-minute struggle on foot. For the loss of 1,600 Englishmen, 6,000 of the enemy were killed. Most of the dead were Scots, for whom the English declared no quarter, including John Stewart, Duke of Buchan, Archibald, Earl of Douglas, and Sir Alexander Buchanan, the last of whom had been credited with slaying Clarence at Baugé.

The 200 French nobles taken prisoner and then ransomed included Jean II, duc d’Alençon and Gilbert Motier, Maréchal de La Fayette. Touted at the time as a second Agincourt, Verneuil crippled the Army of Scotland for the rest of the war. On Feb. 5, 1426, Fastolf’s cumulative battlefield exploits reached an apex when he was made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. A few years later, however, the veteran knight faced an unlikely nemesis in his most controversial battle.

On Oct. 12, 1428, the English invested the city of Orléans, opening more than six months of siege punctuated by numerous sallies, battles and supply attempts. One of the more prominent examples of the latter involved a convoy of 300 carts and wagons, carrying crossbow shafts, cannons, cannonballs and barrels of herring for the coming Lenten holiday. These departed Paris with a 1,600-man escort commanded by Fastolf. At the same time, Charles de Bourbon, comte de Clermont was leading a Franco-Scottish force he’d assembled to relieve Orléans while the commander of the city’s defenders, Jean de Dunois, led a force out to intercept the English convoy.

On Feb. 12, 1429, the two French forces met, totaling 4,000 men, and fell upon the convoy in a wide field at Rouvray-Sainte-Croix, about 10 miles north of Orléans. Fastolf ordered the wagons into a circular defensive laager. Clermont responded by deploying his cannons, which began inflicting casualties. At that point, the Scots’ leader, John Stewart of Darnley, ran too quickly out of patience and led a cavalry charge on the laager that forced the startled French to hold their fire rather than cannonade their allies. While the main French force hesitated, English bowmen rained arrows and crossbow bolts on the Scots. Then Fastolf unleashed his own cavalry, which overwhelmed the Scots, then lapped around the French flanks and rear, and drove them off in a disorganized rout. Darnley was among the 500 to 600 dead and Dunois was wounded.

Joan of Arc

Because of the special provisions Fastolf had been defending, his victory entered the history books as the Battle of the Herrings. On that same day, however, a teenage girl was trying to convince Robert de Baudricourt, the Dauphinois captain of Vaucouleurs, to let her confer with the Dauphin so that she could carry out her divinely ordained mission of saving France. She informed Baudricourt that the Dauphinois forces had just suffered a stinging defeat near Orléans, and that more would follow unless she was granted an audience with the Dauphin. Shortly after that, word arrived about the debacle at Rouvray and Baudricourt arranged the meeting that led to Joan of Arc taking a place alongside the hardened warriors defending Orléans—and contributing to the lifting of the siege on May 8, 1429.

Whatever direct role she had in raising the siege of Orléans, “la Pucelle” (the maid) indisputably elevated French morale. As the English forces withdrew to garrisons in the Loire River region, the veteran knights surrounding her were keen to make the most of it while they could. Jean II, duc d’Alençon, ransomed from English captivity, set his eyes on the Loire bridges. On June 12, French forces stormed Jargeau and captured the bridge at Meung-sur-Loire.

On the 15th they besieged Beaugency. Fastolf left Paris with reinforcements, which reached Meung to join forces with some of Orléans’ besiegers, led by John, 1st Earl of Talbot, and Thomas, 7th Baron Scales. With a total of 3,100 men at their disposal on June 18, Talbot urged an immediate attack on the French at Beaugency, but Fastolf recommended more caution in the face of a much larger enemy army. The defenders were unaware of the relief force’s proximity, but learned that a Breton contingent under Arthur de Richemont had just joined the French besiegers. The discouraged garrison surrendered.

Fastolf faced off against unlikely French military leader Joan of Arc, shown rallying her troops at Orleans. Inspired by visions, Joan led a series of victories against English forces who remained in France after the death of King Henry V.

Learning of Beaugency’s capitulation, Talbot agreed with Fastolf’s proposal that they withdraw to Paris. The French knew of the English presence, however, and being of no mind to call it a day, hastened off in pursuit, headed by a 180-knight vanguard under Etienne de Vignolles, nicknamed “La Hire” (the wrath), one of the first to accept Joan’s claims to divine inspiration. Close at hand were Jean de Xaintrailles, Antoine de Chabannes, Hugh Kennedy of Ardstinshar at the head of 800 Scots and the Maid herself. They caught up with their quarry near the village of Patay.

Fastolf’s Retreat

Since most of his army were archers, Talbot tried to engage the French using roughly the same tactics that had succeeded at Crécy in 1346 and at Agincourt in 1415, with most of his bowmen lined up behind a row of sharpened stakes. He also ordered 500 of them to take up ambush positions in the woods along the road. As they made their preparations, however, a stag ventured out in the field and one of the bowmen, thinking the French were still far away, gave a hunting cry.

The French vanguard was, in fact, close enough to hear that indiscreet call and, worse for the English, their archers had not yet fully deployed. Sending couriers to report the situation to the rest of their men-at-arms but not waiting for them to arrive, La Hire, Xaintrailles, Chabannes, Kennedy and Joan led a head-on charge that crashed into the English positions and exposed their flanks. Soon after that, 1,300 more mounted French men-at-arms advanced along a ridge south of the action, then deployed behind the English rear. As they began their charge, Fastolf led his contingent to join up with the mounted men-at-arms in the English vanguard, only to see them already quitting the field in disorder. Misinterpreting an order, his own men began to scatter, at which point he saw no alternative but to join them in retreat.

The rest of the battle amounted to a mopping-up operation for the French horsemen against little organized resistance. In the worst English defeat since Baugé in 1421, an estimated 2,500 were killed or captured, while the French only lost 100 (20 of whom were Scottish). The captured nobility included Talbot, Scales and Sir Thomas Rempston II, with only one knight of note escaping the debacle: Fastolf. Patay went down in history as Joan of Arc’s first victory in open battle. It also heralded a general French resurgence that led to the dauphin’s coronation as King Charles VII of France at Reims on July 17. For Sir John Fastolf, the engagement held different consequences.

Cowardice?

In 1431 another of Joan of Arc’s retinue, Jean Paton de Xaintrailles, was taken prisoner by Richard Beauchamp 13th Earl of Warwick, in a minor skirmish at Savignies. In 1433 a prisoner exchange returned Poton and Talbot to their respective armies. No sooner did Talbot return than he accused Fastolf of deserting him on the field at Patay. Fastolf, of course, hotly denied the charge, but by that time the Plantagenet aristocracy was starting to choose sides in regard to Henry VI’s fitness for the throne and as to who should succeed him.

Caister Castle shown here in modern times, was commissioned by Fastolf in 1432, based on French designs and served as his residence in Norfolk.

Though nobody knew it at the time, the Hundred Years’ War for France was winding down and as the English soil was being furrowed for the War of the Roses, Fastolf found his protestations accepted by friends, such as Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and disbelieved by political enemies such as William de la Pole, 1st Earl of Suffolk. In between the Duke of Bedford accepted Talbot’s version of the battle but forgave Fastolf and continued to trust him.

The Order of the Garter conducted an enquiry on Fastolf and concluded that he had done his best at Patay, showing prudence rather than cowardice. Yet Suffolk and others persisted in questioning his honor and Fastolf spent over a decade defending himself. Such is the closest parallel history can find between Fastolf the tarnished warlord and Falstaff, Shakespeare’s unapologetic slacker.

Fastolf lost a friend when Bedford died in 1435. He himself retired from military service in 1440. He lost a powerful enemy a decade later when the Earl of Suffolk was condemned in Parliament for maladministration and banished from England for five years, only to be intercepted in the Channel by his own enemies while enroute to Calais and beheaded on May 2, 1450. Fastolf himself subsequently was almost convicted of treason for his association with the Duke of York, who would later make a direct bid for the Crown.

Where Fact Meets Fiction

While hostility grew within the Plantagenet family, England’s century-old effort in France officially ended when Talbot was defeated and killed at Castillon-sur-Dordogne, July 17, 1453. Less than two years later the eruption of hostilities at St. Albans on May 22, 1455, launched what amounted to civil war as the royal houses of Lancaster and York fell upon each other.

By then Fastolf’s ambitions were limited to keeping and administering his land holdings, which may explain his death on Nov. 5, 1459, at the exceptional old age of 78. His neighbor and close friend, John Paston, wrote the most detailed account of Fastolf, describing him in his last years as “an irascible, acquisitive old man, ruthless in his business dealings.” Buried at Saint Benet’s Abbey in the Broads, Norfolk, he bequeathed some of his possessions toward pious works, such as New Magdelen College at University of Oxford, but most went to Paston.

A unique aspect of Henry VI Part 1 is the appearance of both the real Fastolf and the fictional Falstaff—neither flattering. Despite the Order of the Garter’s decree, Shakespeare’s Fastolf appears as a cowardly antithesis to Talbot’s sometimes reckless bravery, deserting his comrade-in-arms not only at Patay, but at Rouen. The fictional Falstaff takes over from there for more serious frivolity.

Another intriguing coincidence lies in the place where Prince Hal, Falstaff and their retinue of ne’er-do-wells spend their mostly leisure time. Among the properties that John Fastolf is said to have owned as part-time proprietor was a tavern in Southwark, London called the Boar’s Head Inn.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

This German Baroness Dodged Cannonballs During the American Revolution

Frederika von Riedesel and Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 19:08:43 +0000

Frederika Charlotte Louise, Baroness Riedesel zu Eisenbach—better known as Baroness von Riedesel—was the wife of Baron Friedrich Adolf Riedesel, a German mercenary commander who served with the British during the American Revolutionary War. Frederika insisted on traveling with her husband and his army, and kept a diary.

Frederika fell in love with Friedrich, a seasoned Hessian officer, when he was recovering from his wounds at her family’s estate during the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763); she was 16 years old when they married. The couple enjoyed a close relationship, so much that Friedrich consented to allow his wife to follow him when he went to war in North America.

A determined woman, Frederika was not put off from the journey although she had three very young children and angered her mother by going. “I am very sorry to be obliged, for the first time in my life, willingly to disobey you,” she wrote to her mother.

She began her journey on May 14, 1776, taking her three small daughters; one age 4, another age 2 and the youngest 10 weeks old. The baroness braved many dangers, traveling through areas infested by highwaymen, “yet I would have purchased at any price the privilege thus granted to me of seeing daily my husband,” she wrote.

Frederika accompanied her husband on campaign. “They are naturally soldiers, and excellent marksmen,” she wrote of the Americans, “and the idea of fighting for their country and their liberty increased their innate courage.” Frederika saved her husband’s regimental colors when they were taken prisoner by the Americans by hiding the colors in her mattress. She and her husband survived the war and returned to Germany, having had four additional children in North America.

Her diary remains an important firsthand source describing the events of the war. Frederika is one of many German women who made noteworthy contributions to history while supporting their husbands. It is interesting to compare her as a German officer’s wife to the wives of leaders of Nazi Germany, who had a chauvinistic vision for the role of German women. In this passage, Frederika describes the Battle of Saratoga which ended in Patriot victory on Oct. 17, 1777.

Marching with The troops

We finally reached Saratoga about dark, which was only a half hour march from the place where we had spent the whole day. I was totally soaking wet due to ceaseless rain and had to stay that way all night because I had no place to change my clothes. So I sat next to a good fire, undressed my children and then we all laid down together on straw.

I asked [Major General William] Phillips who approached me why we did not start our retreat while there was still time, because my husband had undertaken responsibility to cover the retreat and see the army through it. “Poor woman!” he answered me. “You amaze me! Although you’re soaking wet you still have the courage to wish to go on in this weather. If only you were our commanding general! He believes himself to be too exhausted and wants to stay here for the night, and give us some supper.”

In fact General [John] Burgoyne was very keen to do so; he spent half the night singing and drinking, and amused himself with the wife of a commissary, who was his mistress and loved champagne like he did.

Hessian baroness Frederika von Riedesel traveled to America to accompany her husband on campaign during the Revolutionary War. She noted the poor conditions that British soldiers endured due to careless leadership and was present at the Battle of Saratoga, where she and her children were nearly killed. She and her husband became prisoners.

Then I rose at 7 a.m. the next morning with some tea to wake me up, and we hoped now that things would change in an instant for us to finally continue marching away. To cover our retreat, General Burgoyne ordered for the beautiful houses and mills in Saratoga that belonged to [Major] General [Philip] Schuyler to be set on fire…

Aiding the Neglected Troops

Wretchedness of the greatest magnitude and the most extreme disorder reigned in the army. The commissaries forgot to distribute rations among the troops. There were enough cattle but none were slaughtered. More than 30 officers came to me who could not hold out much longer due to hunger. I ordered coffee and tea to be made for them…

Ultimately my provisions were depleted, and in the exasperation of not being able to help anymore, I called the General Adjutant [John] Patterson over because he happened to pass by and I told him, forcefully, the following words because these matters were weighing much on my heart: “Come here, and see these officers, who have been wounded for the common cause, and who are now deprived of everything because nobody gives them what they are owed. It is your duty to bring this to the attention of the general.”

He was deeply moved by this and the result was that General Burgoyne himself came to me within a quarter of an hour later, and thanked me very pathetically that I had reminded him of his duties…I replied to him that I asked for his pardon for interfering in things that I knew very well were not a woman’s business, but that I found it impossible to remain silent because I had seen so many brave people in want of everything and had nothing more to give them myself. He thanked me afterwards once again (although I still believe that in his heart he never forgave me for this blow)…

Dodging GunFire

At about 2 o’clock in the afternoon the sounds of cannon fire and small arms fire were heard again, and everything transformed into alarm and movement. My husband sent instructions to me that I should immediately go to a house which was not far from there.

I got into my calash [carriage] with my children, and we had hardly started going towards the house when I saw, on the opposite bank of the Hudson River, five or six men with rifles aiming right at us. Almost unconsciously I threw the children into the rear of the carriage and threw myself over them.

In the same moment the bastards fired, and completely tore up the arm of a poor English soldier behind me, who was already injured and also wanted to retreat to the house.

Just after our arrival, a frightful cannon barrage began, which was for the most part directed at the house where we were seeking shelter. The enemy probably believed that the generals were there because they saw so many people streaming toward there…We were ultimately forced to flee into the cellar, where I kept in a corner not far from the door. My children lay on the ground with their heads on my lap. We stayed that way the whole night….

Cannonballs in the House

Eleven cannonballs went right through the house and we could clearly hear them rolling right over our heads. One poor soldier, who was supposed to get his leg amputated and had been laid out on the table for this, had his other leg taken off by a cannonball in the meantime…

I was more dead than alive, but not so much over our own danger as that which my husband was facing. However he often sent men to ask how things were going for us and to let me know that he was all right…

Often my husband was of a mind to get me out of danger by sending me over to the Americans, but I protested that it would be more abominable than anything I was now enduring if I had to see and be courteous to people who at the same time were possibly killing my husband. Therefore he promised me that I would continue to follow the army…

I attempted to distract myself by busying myself a lot with our wounded… Once I undertook the care of a Major Plumpfield, adjutant to General Phillips; a rifle bullet had passed through both of his cheeks and smashed his teeth to pieces, and grazed his tongue. He could hold absolutely nothing in his mouth; any food nearly choked him and he was in no condition to take any other nourishment but a bit of beef soup, or some other liquid.

We had Rhine wine. I gave him a flask of it in the hope that the acidity of the wine would clean his mouth. He constantly took some of it in his mouth and that alone had such a salutary effect that he became healed, and thus I again made another friend. And thus I had, amid my hours of sorrow and worry, joyful moments of happiness that made me very glad.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

‘Weary of So Much Suffering’: Letters from the Sheridan Field Hospital

Jonathan A. Noyalas — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 14:09:00 +0000

A gloomy and tragic scene—one with which the inhabitants of the oft-contested city of Winchester, Va., were unfortunately all too familiar—unfolded throughout the night of September 19, 1864, as thousands of casualties from the Third Battle of Winchester were brought to makeshift hospitals throughout the community. “All the wounded,” reported Surgeon James T. Ghiselin, the Army of the Shenandoah’s medical director, were taken to “churches, public buildings, and such private dwellings as were suitable.”

It did not take long for Ghiselin to realize that the 40 structures transformed into ersatz hospitals would be insufficient to handle the army’s casualties, which exceeded 4,000 troops. Ghiselin also understood these spaces would be further strained with additional casualties as Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah pursued Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederates south toward Fisher’s Hill. Sheridan’s medical director quickly realized that the time had come to implement a plan, developed several weeks earlier, to transport hundreds of tents to Winchester and construct what would be known as the Sheridan Field Hospital—the largest hospital of its kind constructed during the Civil War.

Surgeon John Brinton first began practicing medicine in Philadelphia in 1854. He had an active Civil War career, and even served on Ulysses S. Grant’s staff for a time. Brinton developed a reputation as a man who could fix things, and was often made responsible for organizing Army hospitals. He continued in practice after the war, and became the first curator of the National Museum of Health and Medicine. Brinton died in 1907.

The day after the battle Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes ordered Surgeon John Brinton “to proceed without delay to Winchester” and supervise the construction of “a large tent hospital…to be of a capacity of four to five thousand beds.” The following night Brinton arrived in Winchester. While erecting “500 tents…was no slight matter,” as Brinton asserted, the task of erecting the Sheridan Field Hospital was completed on September 29, 1864, with the support of approximately 500 troops from Colonel Oliver Edwards’ brigade. After the hospital’s construction, and in the ensuing weeks, a bevy of civilians, including relief agents from the U.S. Christian Commission and nurses arrived to aid in caring for the wounded. Among them was Jane Boswell Moore.

Moore, a native of Baltimore, Md., who at the war’s outset aided wounded and sick Union soldiers brought to the city, believed that by the late summer of 1862 her talents could be put to better use in the field. After the conflict’s bloodiest day at Antietam, Moore ventured from Baltimore to Sharpsburg. From that moment until the war’s end, she cared for wounded soldiers in the aftermath of the some of the conflict’s fiercest engagements in the East, including Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Petersburg.

In the autumn of 1864, Moore came to Winchester. During that time Moore aided wounded soldiers in various hospitals throughout the town, including the Sheridan Field Hospital. As had been the case throughout her service, Moore took a special interest in particular soldiers and decided to share their stories and her experiences by sending letters to “a number of religious and secular periodicals.” Moore hoped that publication of these letters would encourage donations of supplies. While difficult to quantify the amount of donations Moore secured, a Congressional report noted decades after the conflict that her published letters prompted “great quantities of donations.”

During Moore’s stint in Winchester, two of her letters appeared in the Advocate and Family Guardian—a biweekly newspaper published by the American Female Guardian Society in New York City. These letters, printed in early 1865, reveal much about a nurse’s experiences caring for soldiers wounded during Phil Sheridan’s 1864 Shenandoah Campaign, illuminate the sufferings of the wounded, and serve as a powerful reminder of war’s devastating and tragic consequences.

Colonel Oliver Edwards’ brigade of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island regiments built the Winchester hospital. Edwards was a sturdy commander who was in the thick of many Eastern Theater battles.

Moore’s first letter, published on January 16, 1865, includes an account of her encounter with Sophronia Loder, a mother who ventured to Winchester from Indiana when she learned that her son, Sergeant Adam Loder, 18th Indiana Infantry, had been wounded at the Battle of Fisher’s Hill on September 22. Unfortunately, the wounds Sergeant Loder received to his left lung and left arm proved mortal. He died on October 7, 1864, prior to his mother’s arrival. In addition, Moore recounts the difficulties experienced by Private Walter F. Reed, shot in the jaw at the Battle of Cedar Creek, and Corporal Isaac Price, 15th West Virginia Infantry, who lost both arms in the skirmish near Hupp’s Hill, south of Cedar Creek, on October 13, 1864.

Advocate and Family Guardian
January 16, 1865
I rose from a rude bed on the floor of a house in Braddock Street, in the old town of Winchester, Va., where we have spent seven weeks ministering to the wounded in the last great battle [Cedar Creek]….At eight o’clock daily, an ambulance reports for duty… we, away from the home, and standing in the stead of kindred, dedicate this day, by an act of respect, to the dead, who sleep in Virginia soil….On this bright morning, we pluck a sprig of evergreen to send to the loved ones far away from the grave in which their son and brother is sleeping, and our hearts are saddened to think how these mounds are filling loving hearts with anguish and desolation….Every one of these small shingle-boards, with its miserable and almost illegible penciling, has its history, and that of some is heartrending. Shall I briefly allude to those whose names were carved by same hand?

In this corner lies Sergt. Loder, from Indiana; seven weeks ago, in the ambulance in which we rode from Martinsburg here, we met his mother, and to know her was to love her. In the pages of memory the record of those pleasant hours and interesting conversation will remain, when years have passed away. It is not often you can know the heart of a stranger, yet sometimes, in our journey through life, we meet a gentle, loving spirit whose sympathies with our own, and whose transparency and simplicity of character are as rare as charming. Sad, indeed, was the result that widowed mother’s journey, for ere she left home her son was laid in this burial spot. She waited long, in hopes of taking him to his wife and child, but this, owing to the manner of his burial, was not accomplished; and she returned, leaving us to mark the spot; and on the very day I performed this duty, I received from her one of those warm, affectionate letters that proved ours to be more than common acquaintanceship….Our sad task over, we load the ambulance with soft crackers, pickles, wine, condensed milk, tobacco (needed in the terribly offensive state of wounds), tomatoes, jelly, butter, and eggs, (when they can be obtained). Bay rum, soap, canned fruits, stationery, clothing, &c., and drive over a rough road, up the hill to Sheridan’s field hospital, where snowy tents loom up against the exquisite hue of the peaks of the distant Blue Ridge—tents alas! so full of misery. Here, Wards, three, four, five, six, seven, ten, twelve, fifteen, sixteen, nineteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-six and seven, and the gangrene tents claim our special attention.

Let us hurriedly glance at some of the more interesting cases. In ward three Walter F. Weed, of the 114th N.Y.V., has long been a candidate for soft food, his mouth and jaw being terribly broken by a minie ball. At first he could not speak, and we brought him fresh milk; but now he is able to tell his wants, chew a little, and is going home. His can of peaches we find he has been saving to eat on the way, so we add other articles, and smile at his provident forethought….Isaac Price of the 15th loyal Va., looks dispirited, as he sits with both arms gone. Perhaps he is thinking of the wife, mother, and nine children at home on whom as well as himself this heavy trial has fallen…

Well, reader, no doubt you are weary of so much suffering, and so also are we, so we hurry home at half-past twelve, making a very plain and hasty dinner of crackers, beef and as it is Thanksgiving, some canned tomatoes…and then drive to the “front,” with dried fruits, condensed milk, crackers, stationery, needle-bags, little books and papers. We have paid constant attention to other regiments and to-day we will remember Maryland. It is quite disappointing to find the members of the 6th mostly on picket, but amongst those left in camp our stock is decidedly unpopular…

We pay a visit to the poor soldiers in Camp Convalescent, and they look so sadly into the ambulance, it makes one’s heart ache. After tea, a sick New Yorker sends for something he can eat; so we put crackers, butter, a lemon, loaf sugar and calves-foot jelly on a tin plate, and send to him. At night there are letters to write for the sick, and a head-board to carve for the dead—sad, yet needless duties; and, as I look to remember that not to me has the day passed without bringing its own sad memories.

One month after Moore’s first letter appeared in the Advocate and Family Guardian, the paper published a second. In addition to describing the grisly scenes that followed the Battle of Cedar Creek, Moore shared the experiences of Private George Hill, 13th West Virginia, who lost his right leg at Cedar Creek, and his interactions with Carrie Fahnestock, the seven-year-old daughter of Gettysburg, Pa., merchant Edward Fahenstock, who sent a brief note and housewife to the U.S. Christian Commission to hopefully brighten the spirits of a wounded Union soldier. In addition to including the text of Fahnestock’s letter, Moore also sent Hill’s response to it. Hill survived his wound but perished 14 years later at the age of 32. Whether Hill’s war wound contributed to his death is unknown.

Advocate and Family Guardian
February 16, 1865
On the twenty-first of October, after the last great battle in the valley, Dr. [James H.] Manown, the kind-hearted surgeon of the fourteenth West Virginia, told me that towards evening a number of wagons would arrive from the “front,” with wounded, on their way to Martinsburg, twenty-two miles further. My orderly was sent to borrow pails, and we were soon busily employed making milk punch. Just about dark, an immense double train of rough army wagons arrived, blocking up the streets, and belonging to the Sixth, Eighth, and Nineteenth Corps, each freighted with mangled, bleeding, yet precious burdens, among whom our work commenced. It was a strange, warlike scene—dark night settling over Virginia roads, mud, cavalry, and wagons, whilst with flaming candles (lanterns were not be to procured) we supplied the wounded in the different wagons, giving to each half a tin cup full, and to others hot tea. The night was raw and chilly, and both then and on the next, our duties being the same, many suffered from the cold, especially the rebels whose clothes were ragged and thread-bare, many having old quilts and spreads around their shivering forms. They were mostly from North and South Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia, Georgia, &c., ours from West Va., N.Y., Mass., Ohio, Ind., Pa., &c, &c. Many had to be lifted up to drink, and two were beyond the reach of all earthly pain. Two whose legs had been amputated, one from N.Y. the other from Pa. implored me to have them left in Winchester, they being unable to endure the rough ride over stony roads, in lumbering wagons, and Dr. Manown had them taken out, with others, for whom a further ride would have been impracticable. Among them was Georgie Hill, who was fearful of being moved lest the stump of his right leg should be jarred, so Dr. M. lifted him tenderly in his arms, and carried him into his own hospital, in the Southern Methodist Church, on Braddock Street, two doors from our quarters…lying in front of the pulpit, I found him. He did not look more than twelve years old, his skin was fair as a girl’s, his hair dark, and his great black eyes, just about as large and full of mischief as any I ever saw. Though I had a great many serious cases in Sheridan Hospital, who were not nearly so well cared for, I generally managed at noon to get a minute to take a can of peaches or cherries, or some other delicacy to the dear little fellow, whose bright eyes sparkled with pleasure…

An August 1863 view of Gettysburg’s Camp Letterman, named for Army of the Potomac Medical Director, Dr. Jonathan Letterman. This image gives an idea of the appearance of the Sheridan Field Hospital, large well-spaced wall tents organized into streets.

One day I thought of a present for Georgie, sent by a little girl in Gettysburg to the Christian Commission, and entrusted to me. It was a needle-book or housewife, made of pretty red, white, and blue merino, or soft flannel, with pins, black-thread, a nice letter, some little bits of candy wrapped in paper, and a sweet carte-de-visite of a dear little girl. So I told Georgie about it, and his face lighted up as he said, “Bring it right in, so that I can see it.” Some days elapsed before I found time to do so, receiving at length a gentle reminder that, “that though promised three days before, he had not seen it yet.” So at noon I hurried into the church, and stooping on the floor, showed Georgie the wonderful contents of the needle-book, and read to him little Carrie’s letter. “Isn’t she a little one!” he exclaimed, his eyes expanding to their utmost capacity. This is Carrie’s letter:

Gettysburg, February 25th [1864]
Dear Soldier,—I can’t do much for you, as I am a very little girl—but I think of you, and pray for you too. I hope you are good, and pray for yourself. When we had the battle here, I saw how you had to suffer, and I pity you. I carried things to sick soldiers, and if you were here would do it for you. I send you my picture that you may see how small I am.
Good-by. Carrie Fahnestock.

A few days after, I went in to give eggnog to the wounded, and was sorry to see Georgie about to be taken in an ambulance from the church to Sheridan field-hospital. His few worldly possessions lay on his stretcher, and he looked sorry to leave, for it was one of the coldest days we had had. I tried to comfort him, telling him I daily visited Sheridan hospital, and all he had to do in case we did not find him among so many was to let us know the number of his tent. “How can I let you know?” was his doubtful reply. But late in the afternoon, I sent James with some little article for poor Jones, in whom I took a deep interest, and sure enough in “Ward Seven” lay Georgie…

The next day was intensely cold. The sky was strangely covered with bright, shifting clouds, looking like grotesquely-shaped precipices, the exquisitely-tinted hills of the Blue Ridge forming a framework or border to the picture of the hillside, with its orchard of ruined fruit-trees, through which numberless teams and wagons wended their way to the closely-gathered tents of Sheridan, covering so many suffering and dying souls… I sought out Georgie, and wrote in answer to Carrie’s letter:

Sheridan Hospital, Ward 7
Nov. 5th 1864 Winchester, VA
Dear Little Carrie,—I am quite a little boy, and my name is Georgie Hill, Co. K, 13th West Va. Regiment. I have been a little soldier boy fourteen months, and was wounded in the leg on the nineteenth of October near Cedar Creek, Va., with a minnie ball. I was carried to Newtown and lay in a tent, and on the twentieth the doctor took my right leg off. My father is dead, but I have a mother, three brothers and one sister, and my home is in Mason County, Va. Three of my brothers are dead, all soldiers, one died in the Mexican war, one at the siege of Vicksburg, and one in the hospital in Gallipolis, Ohio….Miss Moore gave me your dear little picture and present. She told me I must keep it as long as I live to remember the time I lay on the church floor in Winchester, after the battle; and I will. Yesterday they brought me to this field- hospital, where all the sick are in tents, and I find mine very cold this windy day. I don’t like it as well as a house, and if I could have stayed, would not have left the warm church [Southern Methodist Church on Braddock Street]. Miss Moore found me to-day right in her ward—she brought me a little puzzle-box, with seven pieces of wood, and if you know how, you can make squares and funny figures. At first I could not put them all back in the box. I am going to play with it when I go home, before I get my wooden leg and am able to run around. I have not been home for fourteen months, and I don’t know when I shall get there. I have not had a letter for two months either, my mother does not get my letters, or I don’t get hers, I don’t know which. I am going to eat candy after dinner, (this arrangement was not made with difficulty) I have had some pudding, brought in by a Winchester lady, but it has lemon in it, and I don’t like lemon, so I keep looking at the candy. Miss Moore asks if there is anything else I want to say, but I never wrote to you before, so you must excuse me. Good-by, Carrie.
Your little friend, Georgie Hill

Sketch artist James Taylor drew General Philip Sheridan attending the November 24, 1864, Thanksgiving flag raising at his namesake hospital. The general is just to the right of the flagpole. Taylor recalled, “As the trooper hauled Old Glory aloft amid the strains of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ by headquarter’s band, Little Phil arose….” The artist also remembered the presence of “maimed veterans, one of whom had but two stumps and another with both arms off” among the wounded men at the ceremony.

The Sheridan Field Hospital officially closed on January 4, 1865. Whether Moore departed Winchester before or after that date is unclear. Evidence indicates Moore was with Union forces in Richmond at war’s end. Four years of nursing wounded soldiers in hospital and on the battlefield exacted a physical toll on Moore. In 1888, suffering from “extremely poor health, caused by her army service,” the Federal Government awarded Moore a monthly pension of $50.

After the conflict Moore, who married Jacob Bristor, a veteran of the 12th West Virginia Infantry in 1867, committed herself to aiding the less fortunate at home and abroad. At the time of her death in 1916 The Baltimore Sun reported she contributed “about $150,000 to the foreign and domestic missionary societies of the Presbyterian Church, most of these gifts having been made in the form of property and ground rents in Baltimore.”

this article first appeared in civil war times magazine